The Long Partition and the
Making of Modern South Asia
cultures of history
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cultures of history
nicholas dirks, series editor
The death of history, reported at the end of the twentieth century, was clearly premature. It has become a hotly contested battleground in struggles over identity, citizenship, and claims of recognition and rights. Each new national history proclaims itself
as ancient and universal, while the contingent character of its focus raises questions
about the universality and objectivity of any historical tradition. Globalization and
the American hegemony have created cultural, social, local, and national backlashes.
Cultures of History is a new series of books that investigates the forms, understandings, genres, and histories of history, taking history as the primary text of modern life
and the foundational basis for state, society, and nation.
Shail Mayaram, Against History, Against State: Counterperspectives from the Margins
Tapati Guha-Thakurta, Monuments, Objects, Histories: Institutions of Art in Colonial
and Postcolonial India
Charles Hirschkind, The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics
Ahmad H. Sa’di and Lila Abu-Lughod, editors, Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims
of Memory
Prachi Deshpande, Creative Pasts: Historical Memory and Identity in Western India,
1700–1960
Laura Bear, Lines of the Nation: Indian Railway Workers, Bureaucracy, and the Intimate
Historical Self
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The Long Partition and the
Making of Modern South Asia
r e f u g e e s , b o u n da r i e s , h i s t o r i e s
Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar
Columbia University Press
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New York
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columbia university press
Publishers Since 1893
New York
Chichester, West Sussex
Copyright © 2007 Columbia University Press
Paperback edition, 2010
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Zamindar, Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali.
The long partition and the making of modern South Asia /
Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar.
p. cm. — (Cultures of history)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-231-13846-8 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-231-13847-5 (pbk. : alk.
paper) — ISBN 978-0-231-51101-8 (electronic)
1. India—History—Partition, 1947. 2. Refugees—India. 3. Refugess—Pakistan.
4. India—Borders—Pakistan. 5. Pakistan—Borders—India.
I. Title. II. Series.
DS480.842Z37
2007
954.04'2—dc22
Columbia University Press books are printed
on permanent and durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
Designed by Audrey Smith
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
2007012702
For all our divided families,
and most specially for my mother
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Acknowledgments
ix
xi
Translations/Transliterations
List of Illustrations
Contents
xv
Introduction: The Place of Partition
1
The Making of Refugees, 1947
1. Muslim Exodus from Delhi
2. Hindu Exodus from Karachi
19
45
Moving People, Immovable Property
3. Refugees, Boundaries, Citizens
4. Economies of Displacement
79
120
Imagined Limits, Unimaginable Nations
5. Passports and Boundaries
6. The Phantasm of Passports
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161
190
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contents
viii
In Conclusion
7. Moving Boundaries
241
Abbreviations in Notes
243
Index
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Bibliography
Selected Glossary
269
Notes
229
271
279
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List of Illustrations
plates
Figure 2.1: “What sycophancy to win our hearts / How eyes
turned away after obtaining what was wanted,” Jang, January 1,
1948.
Figure 2.2: “Here work is done by donkeys,” Jang, December 9,
1947.
Figure 2.3: “We left Delhi but they haven’t left us,” Jang,
December 26,1947.
Figure 2.4: “Come and give a helping hand,” Jang, March 23,
1948.
Figure 2.5: “New Madness,” Jang, November 19, 1947.
Figure 2.6: “Lo, they are also saying that there is honor and shame/
If I knew that I would not have given up my home,” Jang,
December 1, 1947.
Figure 2.7: “Write a letter to the prime minister of Pakistan,”
Al-Jamiat, June 14, 1948.
Figure 3.1: “A visit to Chandni Chowk,” Jang, January 15, 1948.
Figure 3.2: “Eid in Delhi vs. Eid in Pakistan,” Jang, August 8, 1948.
Figure 3.3: “Alas! this selfish world!,” Jang, April 9, 1948.
Zamindar FM.indd 9
61
62
63
64
65
66
74
87
93
95
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list of illustrations
Figure 3.4: “Once someone leaves this world, help comes too
late,” Jang, April 24, 1948.
Figure 3.5: “Indian Death/Pakistani Death,” Jang, April 2, 1948.
Figure 4.1: Advertisement for property exchange, Jang,
December 11, 1947.
Figure 4.2: Exchange of properties, Al-Jamiat, February 6, 1949.
Figure 4.3: Important announcement, Al-Jamiat, February 7, 1949.
Figure 4.4: “Notice,” Jang, January 15, 1950.
Figure 5.1: India-Pakistan passport issued by the government
of India.
Figure 5.2: India-Pakistan passport issued by the government
of Pakistan.
Figure 6.1: Endorsement from the government of Pakistan giving
clearance to a Pakistani citizen to apply for an Indian visa.
Figure 6.2: An Indian visa in a Pakistani passport.
Figure 6.3: India-Pakistan passport with notice requiring
registration.
97
97
138
139
141
155
182
183
192
192
193
maps
South Asia circa 1947
Delhi detail
Karachi circa 1947
xvi
30
46
tables
Table 3.1: CID Enumeration of Muslim Movements
Table 3.2: Muslim Civil Servants in the Delhi Administration
Table 5.1: Enumerating Muslim Refugees
Table 6.1: Family on the Other Side
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88
114
165
224
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Acknowledgments
T
his book is most indebted to all the Indo-Pak divided
families that shared their lives and stories with me each time I showed up
at their doorstep.Their hospitality and warmth made the often difficult interviews a shared journey of aligning memories into history, although I am
certain the one I have written will surprise them as much as it did me.
The research and writing of this book took place in many different
countries across three continents. As I crisscrossed the map of the world, I
became acutely aware of my privileges as a scholar, and the extraordinary
generosity of family, friends, and strangers that have enabled and sustained
sometimes seemingly impossible border-crossings.
For a peripatetic project of this kind, with no geographically contained
community or single archive to go to, I had to rely on networks of old
friends, scholars, and acquaintances who enabled its research in astonishing
ways.To give just one example from a chest full of stories: a school friend’s
mother’s former colleague in Karachi gave me the name of his childhood
friend in Delhi, who received me as if I were a member of his own family, and introduced me to his students, who in turn took me home and
befriended me as their own. My debts are so numerous, and I think in part
because Partition is still so close to so many of our hearts, that I can only
account for a part of my interlocutors. In Karachi, Sarwar, and Abida Abidi,
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xii
acknowledgments
Iftikhar Ahmad, Khalid Ahmad, Mehr Alavi, Nisreen Azhar, Naushaba
Burney, Arif Hasan, Lala Hayat, Begum Kadiruddin, Syed Hashim Reza,
Ahmad Salim, Hasan Zaidi, Mussarat Zaidi, and all the Dilliwallas in my
printmaking class; and in Delhi, Muzaffar Alam, Urvashi Butalia, Mushirul
Hasan, Ritu Menon,Vimla Rajan, Sharib Rudaulvi, and Mohammad Talib
made time to talk to me, introduced me to friends and families, and helped
locate records or simply negotiate logistics. I would also like to thank M. S.
Karnik, as well as Papan and Mohan Punjabi, for sharing their memories of
Karachi with me, which provided valuable insight for writing the section
on the Hindu exodus from Karachi. Anuradha Roy and Rukun Advani
not only provided me with my first introduction to Delhi, but became my
anchors there every time I showed up on short notice, and comforted me
through grueling Delhi summers. Research in old Delhi would not have
been possible without Attia Rais’ support, friendship, and the warmth of
her entire family. I thank them for their enduring affections.
In Pakistan, individuals almost mattered more than institutions in reading any kind of written record, and so the personal help and cups of tea
I received more than tempered the lonely task of archival research there. I
would like to thank in particular Khwaja Razi Haider at the Quaid-e-Azam
Academy, Malahat Kaleem Sherwani at Karachi University, Mr. Kachelo at
the Sind Archives, and Mr. Salimullah Khan and Khalid Ahmad at the National Documentation Center. Mahmood Sham, the editor of Jang, allowed
me to read and use the materials from their archive, and Salimullah Siddiqui
not only put up with me for months in his tiny microfilm office, but followed my research with leads, insights, and a great deal of technical help.
In India, Pradeep Mehendiratta of the American Institute of Indian Studies
was an invaluable help, and the staff at the Nehru Memorial Museum and
Library, the National Archives of India, and the Delhi State Archives assisted
me in finding records, speedy photocopying, cups of tea, affection, and good
humor, especially when I was under stress or running out of time.
Research for this book was supported by fellowships from the Social
Science Research Council, the American Institute for Pakistan Studies,
the Council for American Overseas Research Centers, the Center for
Historical Social Sciences at Columbia University, and the Mary Elvira
Traveling Fellowship.
I have carried this project with me to a number of academic locations in both the United States and the Netherlands, which became my
home for a productive six years. From the Interdepartmental Program
acknowledgments
xiii
in History and Anthropology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,
where I began my first musings, to the Department of Anthropology
and the Center for Historical Social Sciences at Columbia University,
the Amsterdam School of Social Science Research and the now-defunct
Belle van Zuylen Institute at the University of Amsterdam, the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World in Leiden,
and finally to the History Department at Brown University, each has
supported my transnational existence, and provided me with an intellectual community where I received valuable feedback on early proposals
and various drafts of writing on this project. I would like to thank Janaki Bakhle, Partha Chatterjee, Deborah Cohen, Juan I. Cole, Frederick
Cooper, E. Valentine Daniels, Nicholas B. Dirks, Francis Gouda, Ashok
Koul, Muhammad Khalid Masud, Brinkley Messick, Birgit Meyer, Anneliese Moors, Amir Mufti, Tara Nummedal, Gyanendra Pandey, Peter
Pels, Thangam Ravindranathan, Seth Rockman, Willem van Schendel,
Robert Self, Naoko Shibusawa, Ann Stoler, Mark Swislocki, Thomas
Trautmann, and Peter van der Veer. Nick Dirks in particular made me
follow my heart on this project and supported it over the years with belief even when my own faltered, while Peter van der Veer and Anneliese
Moors mentored me through my years in the Netherlands. Brinkley
Messick and Partha Chatterjee’s ever-thoughtful comments reshaped
it in important ways. Willem van Schendel generously read and commented on the entire manuscript.
Beth Notar has served as a remarkable guide from a distance, and
Omar Khalidi and John Torpey generously sent me their writings to assist
my own. Akbar Zaidi, Kamran Asdar Ali, and David Gilmartin’s insightful comments encouraged the sharpening of my arguments in the final
drafting of the book. I would like to thank David Magier, Mary Beth
Bryson, Jonathan Sidhu, and Laura Molton for help with the details of
the manuscript, and Anne Routon and Ron Harris for their supportive
editorial transformation of my manuscript into a book.
Both Eqbal Ahmad and Hamza Alavi mentored different moments of
my intellectual career, and cannot go unmentioned, for toward the end
of their lives, as scholars-cum-activists, they were concerned in different
ways with Partition and its historiography, the folding of the past into
shoddy imperatives of nation. I hope this work in some way repays my
debts to them for their enormous generosity and affection. They have
been an inspiration for thinking about a different South Asia.
xiv
acknowledgments
My own immediate and extended family on both sides of the divide,
as well as childhood friends and neighbors, actively participated in this
research. I interviewed them all, asked them the difficult questions that I
could not sometimes ask of others, and they in turn excavated materials
to help me. Although I did not use any of the interviews with my own
family here, they shadowed the project in unquantifiable ways. My parents and Yusuf Khalo in particular took part in my research as collaborators, assistants, and interlocutors, and my father’s daily newspaper cuttings
continue to give me an archive to think and argue with.
I have done most of my writing around the births of my two sons,
and this would have been impossible without an extraordinary mother
who stepped in with sustained encouragement and indispensable help.
In addition, my father and Markus Berger extended and overextended
themselves to grant me those hours of writing and seemingly endless
rewriting. My brother Naeem, and all my Amsterdam friends (including Irfan Ahmad, Mohammad Amer, Miriyam Auroagh, Nandini Bedi,
Franya Chilova, Julia Hornberger, Anouk de Koning, Marina de Regt,
and Indra Silar) read drafts, helped out with the boys, and argued and
listened whenever I needed it most. Markus has been such a gracious
companion through all these years, and Kabir and Elyas, with their joyous
and tumultuous presence, have thankfully forced me to bring this work
to a close.
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Translations/Transliterations
T
he oral histories were conducted in Urdu, and I have retained the original Urdu in the quoted excerpts to retain some of the emotional tenor of the spoken language. In the case of quotations from Urdu
newspapers, I have mostly only given the English translations, though I
have retained the Urdu original in some places where the wording in Urdu
captured a particular nuance. All translations from the Urdu are my own.
For the sake of readability, I have kept the use of diacritical marks to a
minimum in the transliterations into Roman, and used the most comon
Roman forms for common use words, like muhajir, dada, khala, and so on.
The following diacritics are used to distinguish:
a
i
t
d
r
‘ain appears as
a
ı
t
d
r
‘
Word-final h is indicated only when it is pronounced, and izafat is
indicated by adding -e. I have followed English rules of capitalization for
sentences, proper names, titles, etc.
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Introduction:The Place of Partition
There behind barbed wire, on one side, lay India and behind more barbed
wire, on the other side, lay Pakistan. In between, on a bit of earth which had
no name, lay Toba Tek Singh.1
I
n our maps of the world the bit of earth with no name
simply disappears. It folds into a black, impenetrable line. Let me begin
with Ghulam Ali’s story as a way of unfolding this history, drawing out
lives from lines, untended margins from marked places.
Ghulam Ali was a subaltern officer in the British Indian Army, an havildar, who had been sent to receive technical training in artificial-limb
making in Britain during the closing years of the Second World War.
When he returned, he was posted at the military workshops in Chaklala,
near Rawalpindi. On June 3, 1947, a partition of the Indian subcontinent
was announced, concomitant with the coming end of almost two centuries of colonial rule, and a Partition Council began the exacting task
of counting and dividing the vast machinery of colonial statecraft into
two—everything from tables and chairs, weather instruments and military
hardware, to railway engineers and office clerks. All those in government
and military service were asked to choose which post-independence nation-state they wanted to serve—India or Pakistan.
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introduction
Ghulam Ali “opted” for the Indian Army since his familial home was
in Lucknow. But before post-independence maps could be drawn up that
would show Lucknow in a new India and Chaklala in a new Pakistan,
genocidal violence engulfed Rawalpindi and war broke out between the
two nascent states over Kashmir. Prevented from returning to India, Ghulam Ali was forced to work for the fledgling Pakistan Army. Eventually in
1950 the Pakistan Army discharged him on the grounds that he had opted
for the Indian Army. The limb maker was taken to the Pakistani border
post at Khokrapar and, deemed to be an Indian, was “forcibly removed”
into Indian territory. However, at the Indian checkpost he was not recognized as an Indian. He was arrested by the border police for entry without
a travel permit, forced to serve a prison sentence, and was deported back
to Pakistan in 1951 on the grounds that he was a Pakistani.
If lives can unfold, they can also unravel. Faced with dispossession, Ghulam Ali applied to the courts to be recognized as a Pakistani citizen, but
was declared an Indian national in 1956. He then bought himself a Pakistani passport in order to cross the border and return to his familial home
in Lucknow. There he applied for Indian citizenship, but despite appeals
by his brother, the provincial government of Uttar Pradesh ordered him
to leave the country in 1957. When he was deported by an Indian police
escort to the Wagah border crossing, the Pakistani officials there in turn
arrested him again and, considering him an Indian national, placed him
in the “Hindu camp” at Lahore.
Ghulam Ali, barbed wire on either side of him, is that quintessentially Mantoesque figure: like Toba Tek Singh in Saadat Hasan Manto’s
best-known Urdu short story of Partition’s “madness,” he invokes all the
aporias of belonging in a cartography of nation-states. Where, indeed, is
India? Where is Pakistan? Who is an Indian? Who is a Pakistani?
Perhaps the sheer magnitude of the catastrophic experiences of Partition in 1947 is enough to justify this study. Marked by genocidal violence,
forced conversions, abductions and rapes in large parts of north India,
as well as an unprecedented displacement of people, Partition has been
called “a holocaust” of a tragedy.2 And yet, by placing the events of 1947 at
only the beginning of what I argue was a long Partition, this book asks us
to stretch our very understanding of “Partition violence” to include the
bureaucratic violence of drawing political boundaries and nationalizing
identities that became, in some lives, interminable.
I came across Ghulam Ali’s story in a government file which I requested
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introduction
because I had been “tracking,” in ethnographic fashion,3 Urdu-speaking
north Indian Muslim families as they became divided between Delhi, India,
and Karachi, Pakistan, in the years following 1947. Divided families are at the
heart of this book, for it is through them, their oral histories in two cities, that
I was forced into the archive; it was what E.Valentine Daniel calls “the drone
of silence” in interviews, caught between “not-being-able-to-speak” and
“ought-not-to-speak,”4 that drove me to read Urdu newspapers of the time,
and tucked away, seemingly indifferent government records of both states.
Moving between memory and record, I recover here a remarkable history of how, in the midst of incomprehensible violence, two postcolonial
states comprehended, intervened, and shaped the colossal displacements
of Partition. It was through the making of refugees as a governmental
category, through refugee rehabilitation as a tool of planning, that new
nations and the borders between them were made, and people, including
families, were divided.The highly surveillanced western Indo-Pak border,
one of the most difficult for citizens of the region to cross to this day, was
not a consequence of the Kashmir conflict, as security studies gurus may
suggest, but rather was formed through a series of attempts to resolve
the fundamental uncertainty of the political Partition itself—where did,
where could, “Muslims” like Ghulam Ali belong.
The Muslims I speak of here does not refer to a people constituted by
shared beliefs or religious practices, for certainly Muslims in South Asia are
linguistically and culturally very diverse. Instead it refers to a constructed
category of community and political mobilization that emerged under
colonial conditions,5 and which was to become substantially transformed
through the years of the long Partition. There are many contested histories of how the idea of Muslims as a separate political community came
to be mobilized as part of the Pakistan movement; how the neologism
Pakistan, evocatively coined by a Punjabi Muslim student at Cambridge
University in 1933 amid numerous “fabulous place-making” exercises,
led to the actual “moth-eaten Pakistan” in 1947.6 It is not my purpose
here to add to these studies to understand why Partition happened,7 but
rather to clarify, with a focus on north Indian Muslim families, the postcolonial burden of this political partition.
When the All India Muslim League invoked “Pakistan,” it did so on
behalf of a nation of “Muslims,” even though many Muslims did not
support the Pakistan movement, and yet others would be simply left out
of a state drawn from regions where Muslims formed an enumerated
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introduction
majority. Furthermore, those who did support the Pakistan movement
included Muslims of regions like Delhi and Uttar Pradesh who could
not be part of its territorial claims. As David Gilmartin points out, the
“two-nation theory,” the basis for the Muslim League’s Pakistan demand, was “a fundamentally non-territorial vision of nationality,” and
“for most Muslims the meaning of Pakistan did not hinge primarily on
its association with a specific territory.”8
However, as the Muslim League and the Indian National Congress
agreed to the denouement of partition and transfer of power to two
territorially distinct postcolonial states, nation as community had to be
transformed into nation as citizens of two states. This task came with
questions and attendant ambiguities for both emerging states. Where did
Hindus and Sikhs belong who resided in the territory now Pakistan?
Did they belong to an Indian nation or could they become citizens of
Pakistan? And where did Muslims belong who resided in the territory
now India? Could they be citizens of India and yet part of an imagined
Pakistani nation?
It is at this point that historiography of the subcontinent blurs into a
mapped silence as “1947” becomes a threshold. Most histories of the region as a whole end at this “moment of arrival,”9 as nationalism achieves
its celebrated goal of statehood, or thereafter sever into studies of distinct
nation-states, as if in this “moment of rupture”10 “India,” “Pakistan,” and
their borders simply emerge fully formed. This book sits at this threshold,
and sutures severed histories to bring together disparate “facts” of genocidal violence and mass displacement, refugee rehabilitation and resettlement, controlling movement of people and the making of citizenship, to
show how they were mutually constituted parts of a single history. These
“facts,” if recovered in archives on any one side of the divide, would have
capitulated to a marginal history on the borders of nation. Instead, my
cross-border research elucidates the centrality of the dialogic between two
states as they marked national difference in the midst of historic chaos.
Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s comment that “[h]istory is messy for the
people who must live it”11 is important to foreground, not only for
ordinary people caught in the chaos of their times. The mass of ideas of
what Partition meant do not fold neatly into our paradigm of sovereign
nation-states. From the “hostage theory,” which proposed that the Indian state could “safeguard” Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan by the hostage
treatment of Muslims in India,12 or the Congress leader Sardar Patel’s
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introduction
insistence that citizenship in India be conceived so that Hindus and
Sikhs in Pakistan were not aliens to it,13 or the Bengali Muslim League
leader H. S. Suhrawardy’s address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, where he argued that continuing to live in India did not conflict
with his being a member of Pakistan’s legislature14—the record is littered
with ideas in which relationships between citizen and state, nation and
territory are nebulous, even for leaders of the time. Thus the years following 1947 are extraordinarily important, for in a whirlwind of people
on the move they reveal how these relationships had to be crafted, and
at what human cost.
Delhi and Karachi became the two capitals of the post-independence
states, and although the two cities were dramatically different before independence, it is Partition itself that binds them together. According to
the colonial census of 1941, Delhi had a Muslim minority population of
33.22 percent, while Karachi had a Hindu population of 47.6 percent,15
and although the enumerative power of the colonial census is unmistakable, it does not capture the enormous cultural significance these religious communities had for the two cities.
Delhi has been described as an “Indo-Islamic city” since it was the seat
of power for Delhi sultanates and various Mughal rulers, including Shah
Jehan, the builder who left his monumental mark on the geography of
the city.16 When Sayyid Ahmad Khan, the nineteenth-century reformer,
sought to uplift ashraf Muslims around the time of the Revolt of 1857,
he wrote an architectural-cum-genealogical history of Delhi as a Muslim
city par excellence.17 As the city became the colonial capital at the beginning of the twentieth century, many important modern institutions for
Islamic learning, for Urdu language, and for pro-Congress and pro–Muslim League nationalism among Muslims all came to be centered here.18
In September 1947 genocidal violence from the Punjab spread to the
capital city, and most of the city’s Muslims were forced to leave their
homes and take refuge in camps and wherever they could. By the time
the 1951 census was taken 3.3 lakh Muslims of the city had left on the
trains to Pakistan, and almost twice the number of Hindu and Sikh refugees had arrived from the Punjab.19
Most of the Muslim refugees of Delhi and north India arrived in the
city of Karachi. In comparison to Delhi, Karachi had been a small, sleepy
port city that served the Sind hinterland, and was largely tied to Bombay
and the Malabar coast for its mercantile links. However, as Sind’s provincial
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introduction
capital, its highly educated Sindhi Amils and other Hindu communities
were essential parts of Sindhi culture and literature, and the region’s proud
Sufi traditions.20 As the city’s status underwent a dramatic change, from
the periphery of British India to being declared the federal capital of the
Pakistani state, almost its entire Hindu population had left the city by
the census of 1951, despite comparatively little violence in the city, and
the city’s population as a whole had tripled with the arrival of Muslim
refugees from north India.21
The complete demographic transformations of entire cities and their
urban cultures as a result of Partition’s massive displacements are now being accounted for in the growing scholarly attention to Partition’s memories.22 Yet these resettled geographies conceal the completely unsettled
character of the first days and years of flight, and the ways in which the
combined interventions of the two states shaped them.
Transfer of power took place from colonial rule to national rule in
what was a crisis, a state of emergency. Both postcolonial states were
formed from a divided albeit unchanged colonial structure of governance
and had to restage the modern state on behalf of the nation. Thus their
response to this crisis was crucial to establish legitimacy.23 Both states
responded almost immediately by setting up parallel Emergency Committees of the Cabinet to bring “law and order” in murder-cleaved Punjab and Delhi, as well as the Ministries of Relief and Rehabilitation to
“manage” the well-being of the millions displaced. It is here that the
figure of the “refugee” emerges to carry the scripted and rescripted labor
of postcolonial governmentality.
Some 12 million people were displaced in the divided Punjab alone,
and some 20 million in the subcontinent as a whole, making it one of the
largest displacements of people in the twentieth century, comparable only
to the nearly contemporaneous displacements produced by the Second
World War in Europe.24 The comparison with Europe is significant, since
the rather well-documented social history of “refugee rehabilitation”
there has been considered formative in the later drafting of international
refugee laws and the establishment of international organizations for the
management of refugees. From the European experience, it has been argued, the refugee emerged as an identifiable social and legal category that
could then be studied in the subsequent burgeoning fields of “refugee
studies” and “migration studies.”25 The subcontinent’s experience of displacements, of the making of refugees, has largely gone unexamined not
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introduction
only because of its peripheral location to the postwar international order, but also because in the region’s nation-bound historiographies these
refugees have been presumed to have seamlessly folded into two new nations; although two sets of refugees were produced, Hindu and Sikh refugees were displaced to become Indians, while Muslim refugees became
Pakistanis.26 But this was by no means a straightforward process; it was a
debated, contested, and fraught historical process of negotiation between
two states, in which ultimately there was no consensus on the national
status of the “Muslim refugee.”
This history of a long Partition unsettles this national closure given to
Partition’s displacements, by recovering the contingency in which people
left their homes in Delhi and Karachi, as well as their numerous attempts
to return to them in the ensuing years. Therefore it is with purpose that
I use the word displacement and not migration, to describe the momentous
movements of people at this time. The word migration came to imply
both a movement with the intention of permanent relocation as well as
a voluntary exodus, and acquired bureaucratic and juridical meaning in
attempts to control, legislate, and ultimately fix these displacements—to
produce, with some force, bounded citizens of two nation-states.
In Delhi, for instance, Muslim refugees emerged in the capital in crisis
and boarded trains to Pakistan, not necessarily to “migrate” but primarily
in search of refuge. In the city’s unraveling geography, the Indian state’s
interventions in the violence were exceedingly important. As Muslim
homes became occupied by Hindu and Sikh refugees from the Punjab,
the perception that the rehabilitation of “non-Muslim refugees” in need
of housing and shelter was pitted against that of “Muslim refugees” profoundly shaped the Muslim exodus.
Path-breaking writings on programs to recover women abducted in
the Punjab violence have shown how the two states “fixed” nationality
onto religious community with the Indian state attempting to recover
and rehabilitate Hindu and Sikh women and the Pakistani state attempting to recover and rehabilitate Muslim women.These writings show how
women themselves resisted this national inscription, and many wanted
to remain a part of their abductors’ families.27 But the Punjab was an exception with far-reaching effects. In the case of Punjab, both the Indian and
Pakistani states agreed to a complete “transfer of populations” on the basis
of religious community, but there was no such agreement on the rest of
the Indian subcontinent. This resulted in the Pakistani state’s vehement
introduction
opposition to the Muslim exodus from Delhi, even as it was unable to deter it, for it argued that Delhi’s Muslim refugees were Indians and should
be rehabilitated by the Indian state.
In parallel fashion, in Karachi, Hindu houses became a similar source
of contention as the Pakistani state tried to house its government there
and manage the rehabilitation of Muslim refugees pouring in from Delhi
and other parts of north India. Here, despite attempts by M. A. Jinnah, a
Karachiite by birth, and Sindhi Muslim politicians to retain this important religious community, the Sind Congress strenuously tried to persuade the Indian state to include Sind’s Hindus in its planned evacuation
and rehabilitation schemes originally designed for the Punjab. With riots
in the city in January 1948, the Indian state eventually formally agreed to
include “our people,” Sind’s Hindu refugees, in its planning for rehabilitation. In turn, the Pakistani state not only was ambiguous about Muslim
refugees arriving from outside Punjab, but also formulated “muhajirs” as
a governmental category to classify Muslim refugees such that it left open
an imagined muhajir return to India.
This fact that, in the Indian subcontinent, the figure of the refugee
was marked by religious community, and that these people were considered as forming two distinct and opposed sets of refugees, had enormous
implications for the entire rubric of refugee rehabilitation and its relationship to the making of the Indo-Pak divide. On the one hand, there
were “Muslim refugees” and “Hindu and Sikh refugees,” who were also
referred to as “non-Muslim refugees.”* This differentiation is also evident
in Urdu newspapers where the word panaghirs or muhajirs was used for
Muslim refugees, and sharanatis for Hindu and Sikh refugees.
On the other hand, both postcolonial states conceived refugee rehabilitation not as a religious duty, but rather as a universal and rational
program for the development of the nation as a whole.28 Bhaskar Rao’s
The Story of Rehabilitation (1967) is a testimony of the new Indian state’s
epic efforts to rehabilitate refugees as part of a larger vision of national
development. In an Indian Constituent Assembly debate on rehabilitation
efforts of the government on November 29, 1947, for instance, the need
for “planning” and a “scientific” approach to rehabilitation found wide
* Throughout this book “Muslim refugees” and “Hindu and Sikh refugees” or “nonMuslim refugees” should be read in quotation marks as constructed categories that
shaped and were shaped by this history.
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introduction
consensus.29 Nehru argued before the Assembly that “the refugees . . .
have to be looked after and they must be made proper citizens of India.” A parallel paradigm for rehabilitation is evident in the West Pakistan
Gazetteer of 1959, which announced that “the Government of Pakistan
from the very outset realized the importance of development . . . The
schemes for the rehabilitation of refugees are difficult to separate from
the general development plan for Pakistan.”30 In keeping with this view,
refugee rehabilitation figured prominently in the first Five-Year Plans of
both states.31 This universal framing of refugee rehabilitation projected
a universal figure of the refugee as its central subject, who, through the
discursive and institutional regimes of rehabilitation, was to be made into
a citizen of the nation.
How was the marked refugee on the ground reconciled with the
universal refugee of planning? In the initial conditions of emergency and
relief work, the differentiated categories of “Muslim refugees” and “nonMuslim refugees” is evident. However, as institutions of rehabilitation
became established on firmer footing in government, these categories
of the marked refugee were self-consciously replaced in the universal
language of legislations and policy as “displaced persons” and “evacuees.”
While the shift in categories was by no means consistent, in all Indian
refugee rehabilitation programs and legislations the “displaced person”
included specifically those displaced from their homes in Pakistan32 and
therefore encompassed only “non-Muslim refugees.” In turn, the term
“evacuees” in Indian legislation referred to those displaced from their
homes in India and therefore differentially encompassed “Muslim refugees.” The exact reverse was true of the Pakistani definitions of those
categories. Thus when the universal figure of the refugee was invoked as
“our people,” it only referred to those encompassed in policy and legislation as “displaced persons.”
The category of “evacuees” was particularly important because it suggested that this was a group that was departing, or had departed, and their
homes, lands, and businesses came to be classified as “evacuee property”
which was to be used to rehabilitate “displaced persons.” In this economic
equation, it became important that those considered “evacuees” did indeed leave, although the term “migration” used to describe their contingent departure was laden with ambiguities. In important respects the
classification of evacuee included much more than refugees, for a certain
amount of uncertainty accompanied who was leaving their homes and
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introduction
why. Indeed, in some economic calculations, all religious minorities were
assumed to be “evacuees,” and with the creation of the supplementary
classification of “intending evacuee” in evacuee property legislations on
both sides, the wide-ranging effects of these legislations could include entire religious communities. The institution of the Custodian of Evacuee
Property can be squarely placed in a comparative history of the midtwentieth century, particularly given its chilling parallels with the Israeli
equivalent, which makes evident its silenced effects in “emptying” the
land and creating significant internal dispossession.
The logic and rationale of planned refugee rehabilitation as critical to
economic development provided both states with almost complete political justification for treating these two sets of refugees, initially within
their own territories, differentially. Economic rationalization provided the
logic for the agreed “transfer of populations” in the Punjab and became
central to the notion that Muslim refugees from elsewhere in India could
not be accommodated, that they were an economic liability, for both the
Pakistani and the Indian states.
Economic and scientific rationality of planning for the nation not
only provided the bureaucratic, legal, and technological functions of
the state with legitimacy, but also, as Partha Chatterjee has argued,
“provided the political process a rhetoric for conducting its political
debates.”33 Thus, while the Indian National Congress claimed a secular
platform to represent an all-inclusive “Indian nation,” and a significant
number of Muslims were part of the Congress, the postcolonial Indian state was able to push out and dispossess Muslims with substantial
political legitimacy as it bounded a new nation for the well-being of
“our people.” In the case of Pakistan, which was claimed ideologically
to “safeguard” the interests of all Muslims of the Indian subcontinent,
including those who would remain outside its territory, excluding
Muslim refugees from India was also a significant ideological compromise of its very premise. Although the Pakistani state classified Muslim
refugees as muhajirs to invoke the Prophet Muhammad’s historic flight
from Mecca to Medina, refugee rehabilitation was not undertaken as
a religious duty. Despite ideological differences with the Indian state,
the Pakistani state shared with it the paradigm and logic of the developmental state. As a result of this logic, from its inception the Pakistani
state argued that it could simply not accommodate all the Muslim
refugees that might want to come to Pakistan from India, and eco-
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11
nomic rationalization provided it with a legitimate need to draft limits
to its nation. The technologies of permits and passports were therefore
not mere documents that led to Ghulam Ali’s arrests and incarcerations
by both states, but were ostensibly neutral and bureaucratic modes for
producing limits to the ideological nation.
Histories of technologies to control the movement of people in Europe and North America have shown how they were fundamentally tied
to the making of citizenship through the marking of “insiders” and “outsiders.”34 However, these technologies to regulate movement emerged in
divided South Asia to control ongoing displacements of a long Partition,
and to fundamentally resolve disputes over where Muslim refugees belonged. Thus drafting limits to new nations was not as simple as fixing
citizenship onto religious difference, since not all Muslims could become Pakistanis, and some Muslims wanted to remain in or return to
their homes in India. Thus marking “insiders” and “outsiders,” always an
ambiguous process, became nearly impossible without any representable
limit with which to construct this national difference. Thus one could
argue that the highly surveillanced and particularly unique forms that
the Indo-Pak border took were an outcome of its function as both an
international border and an “internal border,”35 marking citizens from
aliens but also producing questions of loyalty and legitimacy as it marked
suspect/disloyal citizens from putatively natural ones.
In an essay evocatively titled “Can a Muslim Be an Indian?” Gyanendra Pandey recovered the angry debates that emerged in India in the
aftermath of 1947 on Muslim loyalty and belonging. This book historically situates these debates on loyalty and citizenship through not just the
discursive, but also their institutional sites on two sides of the emerging
border, to make visible the power of modern states to limit and produce
bounded nations and the margins within them.36
The first part of this book, chapters 1 and 2, unfolds histories of violence and displacements in Delhi and Karachi around 1947, recovering
the conditions of contingency in which people left their homes, and the
role of the two states in the making of the dual figure of the refugee. The
second part, chapters 3 and 4, examines the emergence of permit regulations in 1948 and transformations in evacuee property legislations respectively, as they shaped displacements both across and within new borders.
The permit system was instituted by the Indian government to stem the
return of Muslim refugees back to their homes, and led to the formulation
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introduction
of citizenship provisions centered on a definition of “migration,” while
evacuee property legislations on both sides changed the definition of the
“evacuee” to create massive displacements and internal dispossession. Both
institutions and their effects are part of the region’s histories, histories
which have been silenced into margins by being deemed insignificant
and through conscious erasures. These chapters thus unfold the emerging
shapes of two nation-states from these very margins.
The third part of the book, chapters 5 and 6, examines the shift from
permits to passports in 1952, a technology to mark distinct national identities and give closure to Partition’s ongoing displacements. The shift to
passports was introduced by the Pakistani government to stem the continued “illegal” flow of Muslim refugees into Pakistan and thus produced
considerable debate on the legitimacy of making Muslims in India into
“foreigners” in Pakistan. On the other hand, the contingencies in which
the passport emerged meant that classifications of nationhood produced
numerous “undefined” and stateless people such as Ghulam Ali who became caught in the limin of new national borders. I trek through an array
of political debates, bureaucratic paper trails, and court cases on permits,
evacuee property, and passports that went on through the 1950s, some
into the 1960s (while some national identity and evacuee property cases
continue to this day), to account for this long Partition.
In “India” and “Pakistan” we live in the shadows of this long Partition,
and it is by placing its history alongside other histories of a twentieth century, marked by all the violence of making modern, “ethnically cleansed”
national identities, that we can interrogate the postcolonial world that we
are forced to inhabit, and from which meanings of culture and identity
continue to be contested.
writing on the border
Many histories of the making of national borders have been centered
on geographic borderlands, tracking the ways in which a mesh of relationships and ethnic diversity came to be displaced and disciplined by
institutions of the state.37 This history is not about a geographic borderland, and a considerable distance separates the cities of Delhi and Karachi.
Instead the border it traces is one which cut through ordinary middleclass households like Mirza Salim’s, captured in an exceptional 1973 film,
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introduction
13
Garam Hawa.This process of border-making—the hot wind or garam hawa
of a long Partition—swept through the inner world of familial ties, transforming both those who left and those who remained in their ancestral
homes, and displacing old ways of belonging for everyone.
Narrated from the perspective of Mirza Salim in a joint family household in Agra, the film rests upon Salim’s ultimate refusal to leave for
Pakistan, even as the departure of his loved ones wrecks devastation on
the emotional ties within the family, and results in the loss of his familial
home and shoe-making business. It is the story of a divided family in the
making, and records, in the undertow of its narration, the emergence of
permit restrictions, so that when the fiancé of Salim’s daughter returns
from Pakistan to marry his beloved cousin, he is arrested and deported.
The evacuee property laws result in dispossession without their ever leaving home, and the film shows the emergence of the “Muslim” as a figure
of suspicion in independent India. Even though Garam Hawa tells us only
a partial story of the Indian Muslim experience of Partition and almost
nothing about the Pakistani experience of Salim’s brothers and sisters, it
comes as close as is possible within a national frame to represent the Muslim predicament, and the emotional, material, and political dispossession
of Muslims who remained in India in the 1950s—a dispossession that I
contend was produced by both the Indian and the Pakistani states.
In an interview, the director, M. S. Sathyu, said the aim of the film
was to expose “the games these politicians play” and the “suffering it
had caused.”38 But while the film does show the unraveling world of a
Muslim household, and their suffering is eloquently portrayed, it does
not really help us understand the political “games” that shaped this long
Partition. How did politicians, many with high ideals and vision, who had
fought for freedom and nation, make decisions that caused such dispossession and suffering? Was it inevitable in the logic of Partition itself? Or
does history bear the task of putting the very process of making modern
nation-states to trial and scrutiny?
Between 1998 and 2000 I traveled back and forth between Delhi and
Karachi to do “historical fieldwork” 39 in familial households like Mirza
Salim’s. Since I belong to a divided family, I grew up with Partition in ways
that have unavoidably shaped this historical fieldwork; it shaped my entry
into the worlds of other divided families, and placed me in an emotional
and political landscape which may have constrained me to “listen” to and
struggle with that “drone of silence” that kept surfacing in my interviews.
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introduction
My tape recorder often brought together family members, as an elder would align stories, many heard before, into an affectionate, sometimes proud, history of the family itself. But, as Dipesh Chakrabarty has
pointed out, “memory is a complex phenomenon that reaches out far
beyond what normally constitutes an historian’s archive.”40 The first narrations, tracking genealogies, childhoods, and other lost worlds were usually enormously powerful in drawing together kin networks, friendships,
and a sense of embedded place, so that by the time we got to Partition
and the falling apart of remembered worlds, there was always unbearable
grief, exhaustion, and speechlessness. Yet these first narrations were also
less consciously framed, as memories poured forth with many surprises to
form a telling of family histories without the ordering of nation.
However, when I returned months later, with stories from the other
side, to ask specific questions to understand unsettled fragments of their
earlier narrations, the answers usually became more self-conscious and
cautious, shaped not so much by the telling of the past as by the exigencies of the present. This present continues to be shadowed by Indo-Pak
hostilities as well as internal margins where Indian Muslims on one side,
and muhajirs (particularly since the rise of the Muhajir Qaumi Movement) on the other side, have been subjected to violence and suspicion
for their cross-border ties.41 Thus any public narration that conceded relations on the other side, let alone deeply felt affections for them, has been
seen as a compromise of loyalty to the nation. The cumulative sense of
danger associated with posting letters, making phone calls, and traveling
to visit family on the other side, including police reporting and bordercrossing harassment, meant that of the numerous members of divided
families whom I met, most refused formal interviews, and those who did
agree requested that their identities be protected.42
These silences have been etched by loss and nation in ways that are not
simple to undo. With the two states having been to war, and to the brink
of war, more times than I can account for here, historians like Mushirul
Hasan have turned to literature (and here one can include Garam Hawa,
based on the writer Ismet Chugtai’s short story with the script written by
the poet and writer Kaifi Azmi), to provide alternative narratives of Partition to “defeat the urge to lay blame which keeps animosity alive.”43
This is partly why historians have eschewed the traditional historian’s
archive for examining what happened at Partition. Although the reflexive
turn in history and postcolonial theory have made silences a productive
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15
analytical site for investigations against the grain of nation, my investigations required me to look for the very record that I had to read against.
What were the “institutional inscriptions”44 of government, law, and leaders that had shaped these silences?
This necessarily involved looking for records on both sides of the
Indo-Pak divide, for no matter how differently Partition may be invoked
on the two sides, it is a shared history of the region for which one simply
cannot understand “the whole range of significance of the occurrences to
which [sources] testify” on one side alone.45 Making two nations out of
a landscape meant the reordering of people and places on a catastrophic
scale, and required the play of both states. The extraordinary parallel of
state institutions, carved out of a shared colonial legacy, in and of itself
called for a converging of histories.
However, the difficulty of a transnational study extended beyond simply that of crossing tense political boundaries. The very differences in
the location of history within the two nation-states made looking for
records on both sides an uneven process. The writing of history has been
an important critical activity to the making of nation in modern India,
in striking contrast to Pakistan. On the one hand, Delhi has maintained
a continuity of status as it shifted from being the capital of colonial to
independent India, and its institutions of archives are well-maintained
and vibrant centers for historical research. I read Delhi’s Urdu newspaper, Al-Jamiat, published by the pro-Congress Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind, in
a national library, and declassified central and local government records
in established national archives. Although photocopying documents in
Urdu, a marginalized language in contemporary India, posed problems
with staff unable to read page numbers and dates in Urdu, and fragments
and erasures of documents left uncertain traces, institutional structures of
historical production conditioned those margins.
On the other hand, Karachi’s status kept shifting, from periphery to
capital, to periphery again, with Islamabad becoming the new capital of
Pakistan in the early 1960s. Some records kept moving with each change
of status, so that parallel institutions like the National Archives and the
Sind Archives are relatively new institutions and ambiguous and largely
uncatalogued repositories of records. I read the Jang newspaper in the
newspaper offices itself, for although the daily moved from Delhi to Karachi in 1947 and began largely as a muhajir newspaper, it has become,
with Urdu as the declared national language of the state, the largest press
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16
introduction
conglomerate. On the other hand, other newspapers like Anjam, which
also made this journey from Delhi to Karachi but is no longer extant,
were practically impossible to recover. The official records that I did read
were mostly from the small rooms of a documentation center inside a
high-security government building in Islamabad where the brigadier giving security clearances considered history of little consequence.
In Karachi, looking for a record of the city’s past was a scavenger hunt
of sorts through a myriad of local government institutions, the absences as
telling as the wholesale replacement of curriculum history with compulsory, geopolitical Pakistan Studies. Even in Karachi University’s library, as
the Freedom Archives were being recast into Pakistan Studies, a librarian
suggested that going to India was my best chance of reading any records
of Karachi’s past! Thus improvisation substantially conditions and in some
sense marginalizes all history writing in Pakistan.46
And yet it was through crossing the national boundaries of archives
that the nation’s categorical order in a patchwork of bureaucratic files
became denaturalized. If Partition marked being “Muslim,” or “Hindu”
and “Sikh,” in particular and violent ways, then moving between memory
and record on both sides of the Indo-Pak divide required a repeated
interrogation of how these markings were transformed and folded into
this national order.This history then is self-consciously marked by a sense
of discovery and surprise, for it brings to analysis that “underside” of
nationalized memories that eschews and glosses over the remarkable contestations of ordinary people who moved against the flow of Partition’s
narrated migrations and maintained ties against the boundaries of hostile nation-states. Before the political trajectory of Partition settles into
a common sense about the region’s landscape, and maps our memories
entirely into nation-states, let us recover the margins that have shaped
them and the roads that were not taken.
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The Making of Refugees, 1947
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1. Muslim Exodus from Delhi
Survivors carry history on themselves . . . 1
S
ome of the most indelible images of Partition are those of
the historic train and foot convoys, the old and the young huddled together, carrying few if any belongings, hoping to reach their destinations
in safety. But this sheer fact of terror and mass displacement alone did
not create the figure of the refugee. When people left their homes, when
their “familiar way-of-being in the world”2 was disrupted by violence, fear,
or uncertainty, it was not necessarily with the prospect of permanent
displacement. The making of refugees was not “a onetime set of events
bounded in time and space,”3 but was instead profoundly shaped over
time by the two postcolonial states as they struggled to classify, enumerate,
and manage these displacements.
I want to open up the contingent conditions in which people left
their homes as old social geographies unraveled, the uncertainty in which
they were displaced, for it was in the hubbub of on-the-ground realities
that the bureaucratic record began to give shape to the notion that there
were two distinct sets of refugees, Hindu and Sikh refugees on the one
hand and Muslim refugees on the other, and that the rehabilitation of
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the making of refugees, 1947
20
one required the exodus of the other. In both Delhi and Karachi, at the
center of this official record was a concern with houses and the housing
of refugees. This official concern and its effects shaped the first flights for
safety and contested urban geographies.
Delhi’s transition from capital of British India to the capital of independent India at midnight of August 14–15, 1947, is well remembered
from the ramparts of Shah Jehan’s Red Fort, where Jawaharlal Nehru
famously inaugurated “the old to the new,” the achievement of statehood
as the expression of “the soul of the nation.”4 Rafi bhai remembered going with his grandfather, a “freedom fighter” in the Indian National Congress, to the inaugural celebrations, and his narration captures another
transformation of the city:
rafi bhai: Aur jab Hindustan azad hua to un ko invitation bhi aya ke
Lal Qille par Hindustan ka jo jhunda lehraya jaye ga Pandit Nehru
ke hathon, to us ko witness karne ke liye ap bhi aye.Ye mujhe yad hai
ke main aur mere bare bhai ko le kar mere dada jo the. . . . Lal Qille
hum log pohnche. . . .Wahan to admion ka samandar tha. Us men hum
dada se alag ho gaye. To unhon ne mehsoos kiya ke hum log reh gaye
hai. To mujhe zabardastı ghaseeta gaya sau logon ke upar se, aur us ke
ba‘d hum ne socha ke ye program hum nahin attend kar sakenge. Aur
darwaza bhi band ho gaya tha Lal Qilae ka. To nıche se hum ne us ko
witness kiya.
author: Kiya ye ap ke bachpan ka bara waqe‘a tha?
rafi bhai: Hanh. Samjhe, 1947 mein . . . ujar gaya . . . sare chale gaye.
rafi bhai: And when Hindustan became free, then he too got
an invitation to the Red Fort where the flag of Hindustan was
going to be flown at the hands of Pandit Nehru; to witness this
you please come too. I remember that my grandfather took me
and my older brother with him to the Red Fort. . . . There was
an ocean of people. In this we became separated from my grandfather. He realized that we had gotten left behind. And then I
was forcefully dragged over a hundred people, and after this we
thought that we would not be able to attend this program. And
the doors too of the Red Fort had closed. So then we witnessed
it from below.
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Muslim Exodus from Delhi
21
author: Was this a big occasion for your childhood?
rafi bhai: Yes. Understand, in 1947 [this place] became desolate . . .
everyone left.
When I asked Rafi bhai if this was an important event in his childhood, I
had meant the independence celebrations, but the midnight of freedom,
witnessed from below, was entirely eclipsed in his memory by the departure of his loved ones, the desolation of mass exodus, as more than 3.3
lakh Muslims, more than a quarter of the city’s population, left the city in
the ensuing months.
On the heels of independence, by early September 1947 Delhi experienced the kind of horrific violence that had already engulfed large parts of
Punjab. It was believed that Hindu and Sikh refugees pouring in from West
Punjab were responsible for the violence in the city in which Muslims became the primary target. Some 20,000 Muslims were killed, and one observer noted that “the dead lay rotting in the streets, because there was no one to
collect and bury them. The hospitals are choked with dying and wounded,
and in imminent danger of attack because of the presence of Moslem staff
and Moslem patients.”5 The “new” Indian state responded to this strife in the
heart of the nation by setting up, on September 6, an Emergency Committee of the Cabinet along the lines of a war council, and a Ministry of Relief
and Rehabilitation for the care of refugees.6 What role did these institutions play in the shaping of the Muslim exodus? Why did Muslim refugees
of Delhi leave for Pakistan despite Gandhi’s pleas that these too were “our
people,” despite the religious neutrality of the new Indian state?
remembered terror
The difficulty of representing violence in academic writing has received
a great deal of attention in recent years, from anthropologists in particular
but also from those grappling with the events that took place at Partition.7 One of the difficulties has involved the ways in which certain kinds
of violence enter the official record and thus inform history, making invisible the role of the state as well as the use of violence by the state. This
is particularly true of what has come to be called “Partition violence,” or
the “communal violence at Partition,” where the focus has largely been
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22
the making of refugees, 1947
on the violence between Hindus and Sikhs versus the Muslims. Although
it has been remarked that individuals working for the state (such as the
police or government servants) became “communal” in the violence, the
modern state as a totality has appeared “transcendental”8 and therefore a
rational arbitrator in the irrational and disruptive violence of the “communalized” body politic.9
For instance, in his fortnightly report to the Home Ministry, the
chief commissioner of Delhi, Sahibzada Khurshid, described “the communal upheaval” in the city as “an orgy of murder, loot, and arson,” and
held Hindu and Sikh refugees who had been streaming in since the
end of August as responsible for it. “The main cause of the riots,” he
noted, “was the influx of 1.5 lakhs of refugees from West Punjab who
brought harrowing tales of loot, rape, and arson.” He argued that “[t]hey
naturally gained the sympathy of their co-religionists in Delhi,” and
that this ignited retaliatory violence against the Muslims of the city.10
This analysis of the violence in September 1947 in Delhi can be found
in the minutes of the Emergency Committee of the Cabinet. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who was a member of the Emergency Committee, noted in his autobiography that the “murderous upheaval” in Delhi
began with “news of murders in the Punjab . . . followed by the trickle of refugees,” and was a “gruesome application” of the hostage theory, whereby Muslims of Delhi were murdered in retaliation for the
violence in the Punjab.11 Furthermore, this kind of account of Delhi’s Partition violence can also be read in as general a text as Percival Spear’s A History of India, where Spear noted that the “tide of refugees [from the Punjab]
caused an explosion of communal strife in Delhi in early September.”12
This narrative of horrific violence—recorded in reports while officials were still “busy dealing with the communal upheaval” (therefore of
substantive impact in policy-making), and then sedimented into history
writing (and therefore of significance in the making of public memory)—
provides a causal explanation for the departure of Delhi’s Muslims which,
by laying the blame on Hindu and Sikh refugees from the Punjab, makes
the violence comprehensible, if not in some sense legitimate. So, for
instance, V. N. Datta, in his study of Punjabi refugees’ contribution to
the growth of Delhi, could go on to explain it as the “blind rage” of
the “dispossessed.”13
Instead I would like to take two excerpts from my interviews with
Muslim survivors of this violence in Delhi and interrogate the context of
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Muslim Exodus from Delhi
23
the Muslim exodus, and in particular the role of both states in it.The first
is from an interview with Aziz saheb, who continues to live in a mohalla
in the walled city:
aziz saheb: Taqseem ke to bahut bare jhagare the. Isne to musalmanon
ko nonasi kar diya. Karol Bagh sara tabah kar diya. Paharganj sara
tabah kar diya. Main special police officer tha. Sabzi Mandi sara baira
garap kar diya.
author: Āp duty par the is waqt?
aziz saheb: Hanh. Sara Dilli dekha. Chhorde, main is ka zikr nahin
karna chahta. Main apna dimag kharab nahin karna chahta.
daughter-in-law: Log yad nahin karna chahte. Itne takl ıf-deh halat
the. Zehn men bhı nahin lana chahte.
aziz saheb: Main ne itna muqabala kiya hai, kuch puchhe nahin . . .
[Silence.]
aziz saheb: 47 men to admi a‘e.Woh to qabza kar rahe the. Musalmanon
ko nikal rahe the na. Makanon par qabza kar rahe the na.
author: Kon admi?
aziz saheb: Jo Hindu migrated the. Ise a-ke jagah chahiye thı. Un ki
wajah se to jhagra hua hai. Bhai! Woh wahan se apna makan chhor kar
a‘e the! Musalman ne Pakistan ke nam par alag hukumat le li thi! To
un ko yahan rehne ka koi haq nahin! To un ke hisab se jab un ko nikal
diya‘e ga‘e, un ke ghar se . . .
[Turns away towards the wall.]
Hamare dukan ke andar chandnı thı. De diya tamam logon ko sara
saman. ek bhi cheez nahin rahi. Koi cheez bhi. Bahut barı dukan thı
hamari jis ki chandnı, sab kuchh. . . . bahut . . . chhor dej‘e!. . . . Mere
samne, char baras ka aur char tukre. Yad ati hai. Nafrat hai mujhe in
choron se . . .
aziz saheb: At the time of Partition there was big fighting. They
destroyed the Muslims—Karol Bagh was completely destroyed.
Paharganj was completely destroyed. I was a special police officer. Sabzi Mandi was completely destroyed.
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the making of refugees, 1947
24
author: Were you on duty at this time?
aziz saheb: Yes. I saw all of Delhi. Just leave it! I don’t want to talk
about it. I don’t want to disturb my mind.
daughter-in-law: People don’t want to remember. Those times
were so painful. They don’t even want to bring it to the mind.
aziz saheb: I had to face so many confrontations, don’t ask!
[Silence.]
aziz saheb: In ’47 people came. They were seizing [houses], pushing
out the Muslims from their houses.They were then occupying.
author: What people?
aziz saheb: The Hindus who had migrated. They came and wanted places. Because of them there was the fighting. Bhai! They
had left their houses there and had come! Muslims had taken
over a separate state there in the name of Pakistan! So they had
no right to live here. So according to them since they had been
pushed out of their homes . . .
[Turns away towards the wall.]
Our shop had silver. We gave it away to all the people, all the
goods. Not one thing remained. It was a big silver shop, ours . . .
everything . . . just leave it! . . . . In front of me, a four-year-old
cut into four pieces. I remember! I hate those thieves!
The second excerpt is from my interview with Salim saheb, also a resident of old Delhi. He recalled the September violence as follows:
salim saheb: Dilli men bhı bahut khun kharaba hua. Ye to‘alaqa mehfuz reh gaya. Lekin Paharganj, Karolbagh, New Delhi, Lodhi Gardens, ye tamam . . . bahut se musalman the.Woh hum ne ankh se dekha
hai. Sabzi Mandi ke, Paharganj ke, Jama Masjid men akar there the.
Jama Masjid se phir Purana Qille gaye. Be-sar-o-saman! Aur chhe chhe
bachchain! Sab ne panah lı thı. Bahut bura waqt tha. Bahut hi bura
waqt tha. Hum chhote the. Hamari umar taqseem ke waqt bara sal
ki thı. Hum apne walid ke sath, baron ke sath, Jama Masjid khana
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Muslim Exodus from Delhi
25
taqseem karne jaya karte the. Ab khandani aurtain, khandani larkiyan,
bahut achhı achhı . . . hath mila kar khati thı.
attia: Ye bat to mere dada bhı batate hai.
salim saheb: Purane Qille men bhı esa hua. Purane Qille men dal diya.
August barish ka mahina tha. Barishain ho rahi thi. Ganddgı thı. Wahan se train ban kar jaya karti thı . . . Pakistan chale gaye.
salim saheb: In Delhi also there was a lot of bloodshed. This area
was safe [Pahari Imli] but Pahar Ganj, Karol Bagh, New Delhi,
Lodhi Gardens, all this . . . there were many Muslims. I have seen
it with my own eyes. Those from Sabzi Mandi and Pahar Ganj
came and stayed at Jama Masjid. Then from Jama Masjid they
went to Purana Qila. Without any belongings whatsoever! And
six six [i.e., many] children! All took refuge.They were bad times.
They were really bad times. I was small. At the time of Partition
my age was twelve years old. I used to go with my father, with
the elders, to distribute food at the Jama Masjid. Now women
from respected families, girls from respected families, very good
[families], used to join their hands together and eat from it.
attia:Yes, my grandfather also used to tell us this.
salim saheb: In Purana Qila also it was the same. They dumped
them in Purana Qila. August was the month of rains. It was raining. It was filthy. From there trains would form and go . . . they
left for Pakistan.
Aziz saheb was one of approximately 2,000 civilians who were appointed
special police officers on a temporary basis by the Delhi administration, and
along with the Madras troops were responsible for bringing the violence
“under control.” This was because the police force became partisan in the
violence, and over 75 percent of the Muslims in the police force, roughly 1,600 men, deserted and took refuge in Purana Qila along with other
Muslims of the city.14 In Salim saheb’s case, his father was a well-known
“freedom fighter” of old Delhi who helped organize care for the refugees
who had collected at Jama Masjid, and it was alongside him, as the son of a
respected elder, that he experienced the events that followed Partition.
Both men remembered the terrible violence as witnesses (I saw all
of Delhi / I have seen it with my own eyes), but in some respects they
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26
the making of refugees, 1947
witnessed different aspects of the violence. Aziz saheb was an adult at the
time, and as a special police officer participated in the actual fighting (he
had to face many confrontations). This was a past that still disturbed his
mind, and he could barely talk about it. The only way he could express
the total moral collapse of his familiar world was through the image of a
four-year-old cut into four pieces, violence in excess of murder on a body
beyond culpability. In interviews with other survivors of the Delhi violence, this sense of unspeakable violence was repeated through the sign of
the child. Anis apa, for example, told me of a boy who had been brought
to them at Jamia who would not speak since he had seen the murder of
his family, including that of an unweaned baby: “ . . . ek bachcha laya gaya
tha. Woh bolta nahin tha . . . kaise ek ek admi ko khatam kiya gaya.Yahan tak
ke sheerkhwan bachche ko bhi neze par liya gaya . . . bachcha itna khofzada
ho gaya tha ke woh bolta nahin tha [a child was brought, who wouldn’t
speak . . . how each person was finished off, that even an unweaned baby
was knifed . . . the child was so terrorized that he wouldn’t speak].”
In subsequent interviews, when I tried to ask Aziz saheb more about his
role as a special police officer, he told me point-blank to talk to him about
other things. Some memories could not be brought to speech for such
was the terror of those times, the unspeakable nature of this violence.15 In
Aziz saheb’s account, the terror produced by this unspeakable violence was
complicit with Muslims of Delhi being pushed out of their homes by “the
people who came.” Makan, houses were at the center of this violence, and
here I will examine how the Indian state responded to this aspect of the
violence, the occupation of houses in a cycle of forced dispossession.
Salim saheb was still a young boy at this time, and mostly saw Muslim
families after they had fled their homes and taken refuge, after they had
been dispossessed and were reduced to eating out of their bare hands. It
was then from the Muslim camps, and Purana Qila in particular, he recalled, that Muslims left on the trains to Pakistan. The camps were an important intermediary site, under the purview of the state, from where most
of the displaced left for Pakistan, and I interrogate this site to understand
the decision of thousands to leave after the initial loss of their homes.
The role of the Pakistani state is equally important to understanding
the contingent nature of this exodus. As Aziz saheb pointed out, Muslim dispossession was constituted in part by the feeling that because of
Pakistan, they, the Muslims, had lost their right to live “here.” The agreements between the Indian and Pakistani states on the Punjab displace-
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Muslim Exodus from Delhi
27
ments threw into sharp relief the disagreements over the Delhi exodus. In
a sense, it is here in the debates on the “transfer of populations” that the
long Partition begins to unfold.
occupation of houses
According to Aziz saheb, the forcible occupation of Muslim homes was
a significant part of the violence Delhi experienced in September 1947.
Sahibzada Khurshid, the chief commissioner of Delhi, noted that “[a]rson
was carried out on a fairly big scale for the first two or three days and only
came to a stop when Muslim houses were occupied by Hindus.”16 The
Emergency Committee also noted that occupations of Muslim homes
were taking place on a large scale.17 Tai Yong Tan and Gyanesh Kudaisya
quote a contemporary observer who estimated that almost 44,000 Muslim houses were occupied in old Delhi alone.18
These occupations created a predicament for the new Indian state that
would have lasting significance. It was imperative for the Emergency Committee to act “effectively” in this “state of emergency” in the heart of the
capital, for it was central to establishing the legitimacy of the new national
government that it appear to stand outside the fractures within the body
of the putative nation.Thus, the violence, as perceived to be caused by the
displaced from the Punjab, had to be brought under control, since this violence, including occupations, was creating another set of displaced people.
In the case of areas that were directly affected by “murder and arson,” such
as Karol Bagh, Paharganj, and Sabzi Mandi, survivors had already fled from
their homes to emerging “Muslim camps.” However, people from areas
not directly affected by violence were also moving to the camps.
Although it was suggested in the Emergency Committee that many of
those moving were Muslim Leaguers, or were incited to move by Muslim
League propaganda, this did not account for the entire and ongoing exodus to the camps. Zakir Husain, the vice-chancellor of the pro-Congress
Jamia Millia Islamia, reported with some distress to the Emergency Committee that he “couldn’t understand why these people should have moved,
when there had been no incidents in some of the predominantly Muslim
areas of Delhi city to impel their movement.” It was his feeling that government officials were advising Muslims to move to the camps for their
own safety. Safety was of central concern in those terrifying times and
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the making of refugees, 1947
people looked to the state to provide it. In addition, groups of Muslims
were making direct appeals to members of the Emergency Committee
for police protection and guarantees of safety, so that they could stay on
in their homes.19 As a result the Emergency Committee was confronted
with difficult questions. What measures should be taken to stop Muslims
from leaving their homes, or should “mass evacuation” be carried out?
Could the government take responsibility for telling people to stay in
their homes and guarantee protection if they did?20
Although attempts were made to divert trains from Punjab away from
Delhi in order to reduce the number of refugees coming to Delhi,21 still,
according to the 1951 Census of India, 323,320 “non-Muslim refugees”
arrived in just the months between August and October 1947.22 Thus
taking care of these displaced people was also important to establishing
the legitimacy of the state. It is no coincidence that the Ministry of Relief
and Rehabilitation was set up at the same time as the Emergency Committee, with K.C. Neogy as its first minister. The Emergency Committee
was already under pressure from refugees from the Punjab to officially
give them “evacuated” Muslim houses for purposes of rehabilitation.23
This made the question of how to respond to these massive occupations
all the more difficult. Should the state attempt to enforce the rule of law
and attempt to reverse these occupations? How should the state provide
shelter for the refugees from the Punjab? What should be done with the
city’s Muslims who had taken refuge in the burgeoning camps?
The Indian state intervened with two measures in response to the occupation of Muslim houses. First, the evacuee property legislation, which
had been formulated for East and West Punjab with Indo-Pak agreement,
was extended to Delhi, and accordingly a custodian was appointed for the
city to look after “abandoned” properties in trust, until such time that the
displaced could return to them. I discuss at length the changing role of the
Custodian of Evacuee Property later in the book. However, in its initial
phase, the evacuee property legislation protected the rights of the “evacuee”
and declared occupations as “illegal.” In principle it was meant to enable
the return of the displaced, in this case “Muslim refugees,” to their homes.
However, at the same time the custodian was permitted to temporarily
allocate, or “allot,” the “abandoned” Muslim houses it took into its custody to Hindu and Sikh refugees from the Punjab, as a way of providing
immediate housing for this first set of displaced people. Given that forcible occupations had already taken place, of the 10,200 Muslim houses
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Muslim Exodus from Delhi
29
taken into this official custody almost all were already occupied, making
official allotments redundant. In addition, such occupations had taken
place on both sides of the divided Punjab and a large number of angry
and destitute Hindu and Sikh refugees were still without shelter. Thus
the Indian government adopted the policy that no (non-Muslim) refugee
would be evicted for illegal occupation without being provided with
alternative accommodation.24 In effect, Muslims who had taken shelter in
camps could not return to their homes if they had been occupied, even
after the riots and murders had stopped.
The second intervention remapped the city for Muslims into “mixed
areas” and “Muslim areas.” Since it was felt that “Muslims no longer feel
safe in mixed localities,” it was decided that “they should be rehabilitated
in predominantly Muslim areas.”25 This led to the creation of what came
to be called “Muslim zones.” Certain largely Muslim mohallas (such as
Pahari Imli, Pul Bangash, Phatak Habash Khan, and Sadar Bazar) were
cordoned off, and “abandoned” houses there were to be kept empty by
police intervention, so that either Muslims could return to them or other
Muslims could be moved there and provided safety.26
Thus Muslims from “mixed areas” were offered safety by the state if
they moved to these “Muslim zones,” which were meant to be “safe areas.” Sardar Diwan Singh, the editor of Risalat, wrote in his account of
those days in Delhi about the move to Muslim zones:
Muslims from mixed areas were asked to move to the Muslim zones.
The constable stood at the street corner and they had five minutes
to gather their belongings and go. Many thought this was only a
matter of a few days and that they would return when the public
had calmed down. . . . [Th]e owner of the Risalat’s building, Anwar
saheb, left his house in [my] care and he did not even put a lock on
any of the doors. Next to him his khala with her daughter and sonin-law lived and they too left their keys with me. And next to them
was an old Muslim man. He said to me, “Sardar saheb, I am a poor
man, please look after my house too, so no one loots it.” So in this
street I was the caretaker of these three houses.27
The editor went on to recount how those houses in his care were broken
into and occupied by refugees, and how his former neighbors did not or
were unable to return. However, the account suggests how the move to
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Muslim Exodus from Delhi
31
“safety areas” was presumed to be of a temporary nature, and that although
they, Singh’s Muslim neighbors, left their homes, they left all their belongings in them. I emphasize this here because this fact of Muslim “belonging” came to be written out in official discourse on “rehabilitation.”
Aziz saheb had used the verb qabza karna to state the fact of occupations, a verb which carries in its meaning the use of force; “to seize” is
probably the closer English translation. Furthermore, the word evacuate
means to move out of a place of danger to a place of safety. Thus one
could say that most Muslims of Delhi were forced out or evacuated from
their homes. But in discussions that ensued these homes came to be described first as “abandoned” and then as “vacant” and “empty houses,”
which could then be used for rehabilitation. The violence that accompanied this process of “emptying” was thereby erased.
These “Muslim zones” came under a great deal of criticism in the
Constituent Assembly, since some felt that providing shelter for homeless
“non-Muslim refugees” should be the government’s first priority.28 In a
long debate that followed K.C. Neogy’s presentation on November 29,
1947, to the Constituent Assembly on “Relief and Rehabilitation” efforts
of the government, it was argued that “refugees” (referring to Hindu and
Sikh refugees from the Punjab) had a “right to live in these portions of the
country” and that “they must be made proper citizens of India.” When it
was argued that “empty houses” should be made available for the rehabilitation of shelterless “refugees,” it was clear that housing Hindu and Sikh
refugees was seen as central to the task of rehabilitation, and that the process of rehabilitation was to make refugees into citizens of the state.29 The
status of Muslim refugees in the city, on the other hand, was less certain.
Jawaharlal Nehru defended the policy of Muslim zones by insisting
that despite the acute housing problem for “refugees,” Muslims “should
not be pushed out.”30 In a later debate Nehru explained what he meant
by “pushing out.” When Hindu and Sikh refugees occupied houses, he
argued, “there was a tendency on the part of the Muslim residents of the
other houses, next door, to leave their houses because they felt they were
being pushed out.There was a tendency to push out the Muslim residents
of the neighboring houses.” Nehru further argued that there were still
Muslim residents of Delhi in camps—this as late as February 1948—and
that he hoped they would return to their houses in the city.31
The pressure on “empty houses” in Muslim zones is particularly evident in the Delhi Deputy Commissioner M. S. Randhawa’s reports of late
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the making of refugees, 1947
32
1947. “Muslim zones” came to be seen as the primary focus for the establishment of “law and order” as well as the vast housing problem that faced
the city’s displaced people. Even after much of the rioting had stopped,
these occupations remained a part of the violence in the city. There were
repeated “rumors” of outbreaks of violence, which Randhawa interpreted
as a “war of nerves” to push out Muslims from their homes. He noted that
“[t]he main cause of the trouble which started on 23rd November 1947
was a scramble for empty houses.” When stabbings and sporadic looting
of Muslim shops took place, he noted that the “main source of the trouble
[wa]s the housing and shopping problem” created by the large number of
refugees present in Delhi.32
Randhawa argued that the “forcible possession of some vacant houses” was an outcome of “refugees who are without shelter [and] wander
about from street to street in search of accommodation.” Their “miserable plight” and “great hardship” tempted them to “invade empty Muslim
houses,” and the fact that “they have no hesitation in going to jail” made
his task of policing these Muslim zones all the more difficult.33
Randhawa thus argued that “the general feeling among the public
[wa]s that refugees should be permitted to occupy these houses and
shops as is being done in Pakistan.” The “empty houses” were the main
source of Hindu and Sikh refugee discontent, and therefore key to the
process of rehabilitation. As a result, he suggested allotting these “empty
houses” to policemen, government servants, and other “suitable nonMuslim refugees” who would, he argued, not push out the localities’
Muslim residents.34
That Muslims, excluded from “public” opinion, saw the “empty
houses” differently is evident in complaints to the chief commissioner of
Delhi, and petitions to Congress leaders. For example, Maulana Habibur
Rehman of the Central Muslim Relief Committee wrote:
In Sadar Bazar Muslims have been constantly made to make rooms
for the refugees by all sorts of tactics, and of late, endeavors were being
made to evict them from Qasabpura and . . . clear the locality of Muslims. In pursuance of this plan last night it is alleged that an offensive
was organized and led by some special police officers. . . .Throughout
the night he was out to hunt out Muslims from their dwellings, cause
women and children to be out in the open, harass and terrorize them,
and make them extremely panicky. The display of police force and
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Muslim Exodus from Delhi
33
his high-handedness had certainly the effect of demoralizing Muslims
and make them to leave the place at the earliest.35
Policemen, as Maulana Rehman saw it, were not neutral agents of the
state, but directly involved in Muslim displacement. Muslim zones, rather
than serving as a refuge for Muslims, became part of a contested and fearful urban geography, in which institutions of the state were complicit in
unsettling Muslims. Randhawa noted that an outcome of this contested
geography was a “tendency among the Muslims, particularly of the lower-middle-class shopkeepers and laborers . . . to sell off their belongings
and go to Pakistan. I have seen in the Muslim areas like Pul Bangash, Bara
Hindu Rao, Sadar Bazar, and Jama Masjid that the Muslims spread their
household belongings on pavements for sale.”36
Thus the experience of becoming a Muslim refugee was not just
shaped by murderous violence in the city. The violent seizures of their
homes by other refugees as they were forced into Muslim camps, as well
as the continuing disputes over housing as they were forced into Muslim
zones, produced a sense of a partisan state unable to protect them and
unwilling to rehabilitate them.
This sense of exclusion from the Indian state’s immediate rehabilitation efforts is most poignantly expressed in a letter by Abdul Ghafoor to
Babu Rajendra Prasad, the first president of independent India. Ghafoor
of Matia Mahal, Delhi, narrated his credentials as a “freedom fighter,” as a
man who had gone to jail nine times in the fight against the British, and
who had opposed the Muslim League. His home and that of his family
members had been looted, burned down, and occupied, and his wife had
been sent to a Muslim camp and from there on to Pakistan. He complained that “un kı abadı par kachchı kor ı bhı kharch karna Indian Union men
guna hai [to spend even a raw cent on their rehabilitation is a sin in the
Indian Union].” As a result, for “bad-qismat [ill-fated]” Congress Muslims,
he concluded that “in ke liye na Hind men jagah hai na Pakistan men thikana
[there is no space for them in India, nor a resting place in Pakistan].”37
Displaced from his home and separated from his wife, Ghafoor’s anguish
and plea to the state highlights what an extraordinarily difficult decision going, or not going, to Pakistan was for those who had opposed its
creation. However, as we shall see in the Muslim camps, even for those
without Ghafoor’s political commitments the decision to board the trains
in search of refuge was both a fearful and contingent one.
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the making of refugees, 1947
muslim camps/purana qila
Muslims in the city sought shelter in all sorts of places, initially with
relatives and friends in areas perceived to be “safer,” and then places like
the Jama Masjid, houses of Muslim Cabinet ministers such as Azad and
Rafi Ahmad Kidwai, the Idgah, Humayun’s Tomb, and the Purana Qila.38
These places of refuge emerged spontaneously as large numbers of people
congregated, but then some of them came to be organized as “camps.”
While at Jama Masjid and Idgah relief work was carried out by Muslim
volunteers39 such as Salim saheb’s father, Purana Qila and Humayun’s
Tomb were taken over and managed by the Indian government.
I want to focus here on Purana Qila, for it became the largest “Muslim
camp” and an intermediary site where the Indian state intervened, and
from there almost all those who took refuge left on the trains for Pakistan. However, as train derailments and organized attacks on trains were
leading to massacres across the Punjab, regular trains from Purana Qila to
Lahore did not start running until early October.40 (There were, however,
some special trains that departed earlier.) In addition, people continued
to move from their homes to camps, such that the Purana Qila camp
remained in use until early 1948.
The camp at Purana Qila emerged as some 12,000 government employees who had “opted” to work for Pakistan and their families (who
had initially congregated at the Transfer Office of the Pakistan government) were moved there by the Pakistani High Commission, until travel
arrangements could be made for their departure to Pakistan. As word
spread, other Muslims seeking refuge, with or without intentions to go to
Pakistan, also came to Purana Qila, and within days over 50,000 Muslims
of Delhi had taken refuge there. With almost no resources in the Qila
(there was only one tap for water outside its main entrance), the Pakistan
High Commission then requested the Indian government to take over
the running of the camp. On September 15, the Indian government took
over the camp, though a Muslim guard was retained at the request of the
High Commission.41
Although a considerable amount of writing exists on refugee camps,
Liisa Malkki’s suggestion that the refugee camp needs to be understood
as not just a place of refuge but rather as a “device of power” is quite
significant. In the case of postwar Europe, for instance, the management
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Muslim Exodus from Delhi
35
of refugees did not emerge out of humanitarian considerations alone but
was considered a military problem, such that it was the Displaced Persons Branch of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force
that undertook this task, and hundreds of work and concentration camps
in Germany were transformed into refugee camps. Since then, Malkki
argues, the refugee camp is meant to create supervisable spaces so that
administrative and bureaucratic processes can intervene in categorizing,
quarantining, and controlling its “inmates.”42
Although camps like Purana Qila emerged spontaneously and in chaotic conditions, they were also subjected to modern disciplinary imperatives.
After Zakir Husain visited Purana Qila at Nehru’s request, he reported
to the Emergency Committee that “these places could not properly be
called camps but rather areas in which humanity was dumped.”43 Anis
Kidwai, who worked as a volunteer with refugees, was also overwhelmed
by the abject conditions inside Purana Qila, and described it in her memoir as a mass of “disorganized tents and heaps of tin roofs.”44 Yet once the
Indian government took over the running of the camp, it is interesting
to note the paradigmatic fashion by which organizing the camp involved
establishing the post of a “camp commandant” and installing loudspeakers
to facilitate control, even prior to providing additional access to water.45
The Emergency Committee minutes are quite informative on the
concerns of the state in the management of such a camp, although it is
uncertain how much of what is recorded here was actually implemented
or was implementable in those circumstances. For example, in the search
for a cadre of volunteers to help run the camps it was suggested that the
Muslim policemen who had deserted to the camp be given back their
uniforms. Although this plan was opposed, a consideration of policing
skills as an asset was not incidental, for orders were passed to search all
refugees entering the camp, and repeated attempts were made to control
movement into and out of the camp, such that at one point permits were
instated. This control was considered both justified and for the inmates’
own welfare, first because of the violent conditions in the city, and then
because of an outbreak of cholera in the camp.46
It is also evident from the minutes of the Emergency Committee
that Muslim refugees in Purana Qila resented these attempts to discipline
them, for officials repeatedly commented on their “uncooperative” nature. Gyanendra Pandey has argued that conditions in the Muslim camps
were much worse than those in the Hindu camps because of inadequate
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the making of refugees, 1947
relief supplies.47 Yet it was the “uncooperative” nature of the Muslim refugees that was considered a major obstacle in improving the conditions
of the camp, as one official noted that “[t]he attitude of the refugees in
the Purana Qila continues to be generally hostile to the non-Muslims
and this makes it extremely difficult for the camp commandant to improve conditions in the camp.” However, it was not only hostility to nonMuslims that was deemed to be the source of the problem, but in addition
“[o]ne of the main difficulties was that many of the refugees did not obey
the camp commandant or their own leaders.”48
As studies of contemporary refugees have shown, it is the breakdown
of trust which is culturally constituted in a society that forces a person to
become a refugee in the first place, and this distrust is only heightened
in the hierarchical disciplinary spaces of a refugee camp.49 From the perspective of Delhi’s Muslims, the state had failed to protect them in their
homes, the Muslim policemen of Delhi were also in the camp, the sanitary conditions of the camp were so poor that a number of people had
died of cholera, and the camp was rife with rumors of what was going
on in the city. Thus it is not surprising that the Muslims of Purana Qila
were hostile to the camp managers—representatives of the Indian state on
whom they were now dependent for their survival. In addition, the camp
had brought together Muslims from many different social backgrounds
and political orientations, and, as Salim saheb had recalled, stripped many
of them of their “respectability.” E. Valentine Daniel and John Knudsen
describe this as “a state of hyperinformation” in which it becomes very
difficult to give meaning to experiences,50 and it was in this “state of
hyperinformation” that Muslims of the camp were then being asked to
decide whether they wanted to stay in Delhi or go to Pakistan.
To “arrange census” was perceived by the Emergency Committee as
a task of high priority in the management of the Muslim camp. Given
the camp’s origin, as a refuge of Pakistani government personnel, there
were a large number of people in the camp who had decided to leave
for Pakistan and were merely awaiting train facilities to do so. Their bags
and beddings were decisively packed, so to speak. However, from the start
it was suggested that “those in Purana Qila be separated into two lots,”
those wanting to go to Pakistan and “those who wished to stay.” K. C.
Neogy, to whom the task of the “census” fell, pointed out the difficulties of categorizing the Muslim refugees but conjectured that “about 90
percent” of the lakh of Muslim inhabitants of Delhi who had gone into
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Muslim Exodus from Delhi
37
refugee camps “seem[ed] to want to leave for Pakistan.” The task of the
census came up repeatedly for discussion in the Emergency Committee,
which suggests that determining the intentions of the “inmates” was not
a simple matter. Yet the “general feeling” in the Emergency Committee
was that there was “reason to believe that 90 percent wish to go out” or
“would want to go to Pakistan.” Given that in fact most of the Muslims
in Purana Qila did leave for Pakistan, it would seem that the estimates of
the Emergency Committee were accurate. However, one report to the
Emergency Committee noted that “[e]xact figures for the latter two categories [go to Pakistan or back to city] are extremely difficult—as large
numbers have not as yet finally made up their minds.”51
In this context of “hyperinformation,” there were some extremely important efforts to reassure and retain the Muslims of the city. Gandhi’s arrival in Delhi in October is widely regarded as the most important intervention in halting the murders and occupations. Sumit Sarkar describes
it as the “Mahatama’s finest hour,”52 as a frail but determined Gandhi
began to visit Muslim mohallas in an effort to restoring the morale of the
Muslims.53 Qamar apa, in my interview with her, recalled hearing about
Gandhi’s visit to Maulana Ahmad Salim, of the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind,
which she considered of the most importance in her family’s decision to
remain in Delhi.
Salim saheb, on the other hand, recalled Maulana Azad’s khutba at the
Jama Masjid on October 24, 1947:
Maulana Azad ne akhir dam tak ek ek admi ko rokne ki koshish ki. Aur
Maulana Azad ki ek tarikhi taqreer hai Jama Masjid pe. Bahut tarikhi
taqreer . . . to un kı taqreer se bahut logon ke bandhe hua‘e bistar, kehte
hai, bandhe hua‘e bistar khul gaye . . . Us waqt mohalle men bahs ho rahi
thı ke ja‘e ya nah ja‘e. Main ne bataya na ke Maulana Azad ki taqreer se
hazaron bistar khul gaye.
Maulana Azad till the very end tried to stop each and every person.
And there is a historic speech by Maulana Azad at Jama Masjid. A
very historic speech . . . for as a result of his speech many people’s
packed beddings opened, they say, packed beddings opened . . . at
the time in our mohalla there was a debate about whether to go or
not go. As I said, as a result of Maulana Azad’s speech thousands of
beddings opened.
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the making of refugees, 1947
38
Azad, in his historic khutba, had argued to the city’s Muslims that “this
escape that you have given the sacred name of hijrat” was a hasty decision, made in fear. He asked them to let these difficult times pass,
and said they could always leave later if they felt they wanted to.54 The
impact of the khutba went beyond those who were actually present to
hear it, for word of mouth and newspapers spread Azad’s “dardnak cheekh
[cry of anguish].” According to Chief Commissioner Khurshid, Muslim
refugees “in Purana Qila returned in thousands to the city with more
confidence . . . and this was partly the result of the speech by Hon. Maulana Azad.”55
On January 12, 1948, Gandhi started his fast. Azad noted that the fast
had an “electric effect” and that “not only the city but the whole of India
was deeply stirred.” One of Gandhi’s conditions for breaking his fast, according to Azad, was that all Muslims of Delhi be resettled in their own
homes. Azad wrote that he did not think that this was a practical solution
since “many of the refugees from West Punjab had occupied the houses
which were left vacant by Muslims. If it was a matter of [only] a few hundred, perhaps Gandhiji’s wishes could have been carried out.”56
When G.D. Khosla, appointed to undertake an enquiry into the workings of the Custodian of Evacuee Property in Delhi, went to see Gandhi
a few days before his assassination, he recalled the following conversation
with Gandhi:
khosla: The Muslims in the Old Fort [Purana Qila] camp have no
wish to stay in this country. They told me when I visited them,
that they would like to go to Pakistan as soon as possible. Our
own people are without houses or shelter. It breaks my heart
to see them suffering like this, exposed to the elements. Tell me
Bapuji, what should I do?
gandhi: When I go there they do not say they want to go to Pakistan. . . . They are also our people. You should bring them back
and protect them.57
Although Khosla asserted that Gandhi convinced him of his moral
task, yet the conversation reflects a widely held perception in different
sections of the Indian state that “non-Muslim refugees” were “our own
people” who had to be rehabilitated, while “Muslim refugees” had questionable entitlement. Thus despite significant attempts by Gandhi and
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Muslim Exodus from Delhi
39
Azad to reassure the Muslims of Delhi, this overriding perception had
important effects. Wedged between divergent views of whether or not
Muslim refugees in camps wanted to go to Pakistan was the question
of housing Hindu and Sikh refugees. If Muslim refugees in camps like
Purana Qila were to remain as Gandhi wished, what would the Indian
state do with their occupied houses, and where would they be rehabilitated? The economic equation that the rehabilitation of Hindu and Sikh
refugees was contingent upon a Muslim exodus was perhaps most bluntly
articulated by Sardar Patel when he noted in an Emergency Committee
meeting “that there was bound to be trouble if as a result of these Muslims not moving out, it proved impossible to accommodate non-Muslim
refugees coming in from the West.”58
This equation had far-reaching effects, as we shall see, when those who
boarded trains to Pakistan to escape the abject and uncertain conditions
of the camps later wanted to return to their homes. If the loss of their
homes and contested geographies of Delhi propelled them to leave, their
departure and arrival was equally contested in Pakistan, on the other side
of this unsettled and shifting landscape.
on the transfer of populations
As Aziz saheb noted, Muslim displacement was accompanied by a feeling
of dispossession because of the creation of Pakistan. However, as thousands of Delhi’s Muslims boarded special trains to Pakistan, the Pakistani
government viewed this exodus with alarm.59
To understand its alarm, it is necessary to situate it in the context of the
agreed “transfer of populations” in the Punjab. By late August 1947 it became
evident that the Boundary Force that had been established by the colonial
state to deal with outbreaks of violence in the Punjab was terribly inadequate. The Cabinet of the Pakistani government complained bitterly to its
Indian counterpart that the Boundary Force had become partisan, and was
spectator to or abetting in the violence instead of controlling it.60 One of
the Pakistani Cabinet’s concerns was that the Boundary Force consisted of
only 20 percent Muslims, and even fewer officers, and that this disproportion
had failed to deter a “slaughter of Muslims in large numbers.”61 The loss of
confidence in the Boundary Force had taken place on both sides, and thus it
was agreed that the problem of controlling the violence and providing safe
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the making of refugees, 1947
passage to the “evacuating populations” had to be handled differently. As a
result, by August 28 the Boundary Force was replaced by the joint Military
Evacuation Organization (MEO).62 The MEO coordinated now-divided
military units so that Pakistan army units escorted Muslim caravans and trains
while Indian army units escorted Hindu and Sikh caravans and trains.
The establishment of the MEO brought with it a critical question.
What should the official position be regarding the “evacuating populations”? Should they be regarded as refugees, who would return to their
homes once the violence was brought to a halt, or was there to be an
interstate agreement regarding “the wholesale transfer of population”?
The Pakistani Cabinet was concerned, for a “refugee problem” premised
on refugee return back to their original homes was “possible to handle,”
but a transfer of population on religious lines in the Punjab meant the
momentous exchange of 12 million people.
In the Cabinet discussions on how to manage the Punjab displacements, an agreement to a “transfer of population” was seen as having
two possibly grave implications, and which did indeed have enduring
consequences in the ensuing years. An exchange of populations within
the Punjab was considered possible because it was believed that since the
Muslim population of East Punjab was roughly equal to the non-Muslim
population of West Punjab and since the property of the latter was more
than that of the former, there would be “no real difficulties in the way of
absorbing the entire Muslim population of East Punjab in place of the
non-Muslim population of West Punjab.”63 Calculations of property, the
homes, businesses, and lands of those departing for safety were exceedingly important to this assessment of the Punjab situation.
However, first there were concerns that if questions of compensation
on the basis of property arose, the Pakistani state might have to pay more
than it would receive, and this could place a serious strain on its fragile
economy. It was argued in the Cabinet that “the Sikhs had demanded the
partition of Punjab on the basis of property holdings for the simple reason
that they had extensive and valuable holdings in the West Punjab,” and
that this was bound to become an issue.64
Second, it was feared that if an exchange of populations was agreed
to in principle in the Punjab, “there was likelihood of trouble breaking
out in other parts of the subcontinent with a view to forcing Muslims in
the Indian Dominion to move to Pakistan. If that happened we would
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Muslim Exodus from Delhi
41
find ourselves with inadequate land and other resources to support the
influx.”65 The Punjab could set a dangerous precedent for the rest of the
subcontinent. Given that Muslims in the rest of India, some 42 million,
formed a population larger than the entire population of West Pakistan at
the time, economic rationality eschewed such a forced migration.
However, in the divided Punjab millions of people were already on the
move, and the two governments had to respond to this mass movement.
Thus, despite these important reservations, the establishment of the MEO
led to an acceptance of a “transfer of populations” in divided Punjab, “to
give a sense of security” to ravaged communities on both sides.66 A statement of the Indian government’s position of such a transfer across divided
Punjab was made in the legislature by Neogy on November 18, 1947.
He stated that although the Indian government’s policy was “to discourage mass migration from one province to another,” Punjab was to be an
exception. In the rest of the subcontinent migrations were not to be on a
planned basis, but a matter of individual choice. This exceptional character of movements across divided Punjab needs to be emphasized, for the
agreed and “planned evacuations” by the two governments formed the
context of those displacements.67 In contrast, movements of people from
other parts of the subcontinent have different negotiated histories.
Delhi fell outside the rubric of Punjab’s agreed transfers. Therefore,
when violence engulfed Delhi in early September, it became a subject
of intense discussion in the parallel Pakistani government’s Emergency
Committee of the Cabinet.68 On September 15, 1947, Mohammad Ali
Jinnah reported on his discussions with Delhi’s Muslim leaders. He argued that Delhi’s Muslims had now two courses open to them—one,
to demand from the Indian government that they “give the minorities
there a fair deal” or, two, “to start a civil war.” The possibility of migrating to Pakistan, of seeking refuge or a home there, was not even
considered as an option. When it was clear that Muslims were leaving
their homes and going to refugee camps in large numbers, a suggestion was made in a meeting of the Pakistani Emergency Committee
that in order to stop further abandonment of Delhi by Muslims, Liaqat Ali Khan as prime minister should go there to talk to the refugees and “advise them to stay on and make them understand that they
were now nationals of India and should look to the Indian government
for protection.” This then became the Pakistani position on the matter,
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the making of refugees, 1947
that “the Muslims who are forced to leave their homes in India are Indian
nationals and so long as they are in India it is the duty of the Indian government to feed and protect them as much as their other citizens.”69
Although the Pakistani government had accepted the total evacuation of Muslims of East Punjab, it considered it an imperative to deter migrations from elsewhere in India. Despite abject conditions of
Muslims in Delhi, the fear of a forced Muslim exodus from the rest of
India was so great that as large numbers of Muslims boarded trains in
Delhi, the Pakistani government objected to the Indian government’s
position of allowing “those who wished to leave” to do so. It argued
that the Indian government was not giving sufficient assurances to the
Muslims there, as “the attitude . . . taken by high officials of the Indian
government [was] that Muslims had no future in Delhi and their safety
could not be guaranteed if they insisted on staying on in Delhi.”70
However, despite these objections, deterring this exodus was ideologically more complicated.
At the inter-dominion conference on October 5, 1947, at Lahore,
the Muslim exodus from Delhi became an important point of contention. The Pakistani government insisted that only those in Purana
Qila who had opted to work for the Pakistan government should be
allowed to board the special trains to Pakistan, for it had not agreed to
the movement of any refugees from Delhi or from Uttar Pradesh (UP).
Liaqat Ali Khan took particular exception to what he described as the
“dumping” of Muslims across the Pakistan border, and emphasized that
the MEO agreement extended to only “members of the minority community” of East and West Punjab, the Punjab States, and the North West
Frontier Province.71
The Indian government publicized Liaqat’s position at the conference,
that the government of Pakistan would not accept Muslim refugees from
areas other than East Punjab—that “even Muslims who have worked for
establishing Pakistan, even if they want to go, their doors are closed.”72
In opposition to the Pakistani policy, the Indian government announced
that it was willing to accept “non-Muslim refugees” from both Baluchistan and Sindh, which were also outside the MEO agreement.73
This of course challenged the legitimacy of the Pakistani state as a proclaimed Muslim homeland and led to a “clarifying” rejoinder by Liaqat in
a press conference on October 9. He claimed that he had only opposed
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Muslim Exodus from Delhi
43
the suggestion of the Indian government that “the Muslim populations of
Delhi and UP’s western districts be exchanged.” The point of contention
was that slippery line between “wishing to leave” and feeling “pushed
out.” Liaqat stated:
I was told that all the Muslims of Delhi and UP want to come to
Pakistan, and Pakistan should facilitate them. This is when I made
it very clear that while Pakistan is willing to provide refuge to
Muslims, it does not want that Muslims from regions other than
East Punjab leave their watan and property and come to Pakistan.
I placed emphasis that it is the duty of the Government of India
to protect these Muslims and they should fulfill their promises. If
the Government of India had fulfilled its duty properly then there
would be no question of Muslims of Delhi and UP moving. The
Partition of the country was done on the principle that minorities
would remain in their regions and the governments would provide
protection to all its citizens, and give them equal rights.74
It was a difficult position to straddle for the Pakistani state, to argue
that it was a refuge for all Muslims, and discourage Muslim displacement at the same time. The principle that “minorities would remain in
their regions” and be equal citizens of those states was already unsettled
by the intervention of the two states in the Punjab violence. Although
people were displaced in terror, the agreed transfer of populations in divided Punjab precluded the possibility of their eventual return to their
homes, precluded the possibility of rebuilding new lives in old communities. It meant that Hindu and Sikh refugees of West Punjab were
not to be regarded as “minorities” and citizens of the Pakistani state, but
instead were to be rehabilitated by the Indian state in order to become
Indian citizens.
The transfer of populations in the Punjab indeed set in motion an
unraveling precedent. How were Muslim refugees from the Punjab to
be differentiated from Muslim refugees from elsewhere? Which Muslim
refugees were to be regarded as subjects of the Pakistani state, and which
Muslim refugees were to be rehabilitated by the Indian state?
Delhi’s Muslims left their city in the midst of this ambiguity and interstate disagreement over their initial flight, and this would later lead to
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the making of refugees, 1947
questions about their national status and eventual belonging. As they arrived in Karachi, they faced a small, multireligious city in the throes of
a different housing crisis, drawing out unresolved questions about the
place of religious minorities in this shifting spatial order. If Punjab had
unsettled a status quo, then what was the new status of the large Hindu
communities in Sind?
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2. Hindu Exodus from Karachi
For a long time now,
We have stood
On the rooftops of stories
Believing this city is ours.1
A
s refugees from Purana Qila and other “Muslim refugee
camps” in Delhi boarded trains to Pakistan, most of them made their way
to Karachi, Pakistan’s new capital in the province of Sind. In Pakistan,
Muslim refugees came to be officially called “muhajirs.”2 Although the
specific Urdu word for refugees is panaghir (the seeker of panah or refuge), the word muhajir, which means both migrant and refugee, invoked
the migration of Prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to
Medina in a.d. 622. Naming Muslim refugees who came to Pakistan muhajirs has been interpreted as an attempt to ideologically reinforce Muslim League’s broad claim that Pakistan would be a home for Muslims,
imbue a sense of religious significance to the hardships of displacement,
and inspire religious duty among local Muslim inhabitants to receive the
displaced. However, it is important to note that the hijra of a.d. 622 was
an obligatory migration that had to be undertaken by all of Muhammad’s
followers as a matter of faith, and that the Pakistani state adopted this
symbolic name despite the fact that mass migration, as we have seen, was
actively discouraged by it.3
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48
the making of refugees, 1947
As a governmental category, “muhajirs” figured prominently in the
1951 Census, which enumerated Urdu-speaking muhajirs in particular as
a majority in the city of Karachi.4 The census defined muhajir as a person
who had moved into Pakistan “as the result of or fear of disturbances
connected with Partition, no matter from where, when or for how long a
stay they have come” (emphasis added).5 This definition was consciously
adopted to leave open the notion that while some muhajirs, such as those
of Punjab, were to remain permanently in Pakistan, other muhajirs from
the rest of India might return to their homes in India. Thus in many respects muhajir was not conceived as a fixed or stable refugee category to
be folded into citizens of the new nation, unlike the discursive figure of
the “refugee” in India.
However, Sind was a region that was particularly characterized for its
“communal harmony,” and in the days leading up to Partition, Sind’s governor, Francis Mudie, described it as a place which “[c]haractistically . . .
carries on almost as if nothing had happened or was going to happen,”
and that he “[didn’t] expect many real Sindhi [Hindus] to leave the Province.”6 In keeping with Mudie’s view, Karachi did not experience the
scale of violence that had ensued in Punjab and Delhi.Yet soon after Partition, the Hindu population began to leave Karachi, so that in the decade
between 1941 and 1951 almost the entire Hindu population had left the
city. By the time “the most notable communal incident” took place on
January 6, 1948, Hindus and Sikhs were already leaving the city and the
province in large numbers. In fact, the “incident” took place as Sikhs from
various parts of Sind arrived in Karachi to leave by ship for India, and
were taken in open horse carriages to a gurdwara in the city. Reportedly,
Muslim refugees surrounded the gurdwara and attacked it, and this led to
rioting in the city which was brought “under control” when the army
was deployed.7
The postindependence governor of Sind, Ghulam Husain Hidayatullah, attributed the departure of Sindhi Hindus to the incoming Muslim
refugees, and argued that “[t]he Sindhi Hindu, a shrewd businessman,
does not want any upheaval and the Sindhi Muslim is also free from communal hatred. It is the refugees who have brought heat and passion into
the placid life of this province.” Although he recognized that “Muslim
refugees” had to be “welcomed,” he regarded the “refugee problem” as
“the gravest problem” facing the province in “the maintenance of law
and order in Sind.”8
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Hindu Exodus from Karachi
49
I focus in this chapter on the Hindu exodus from Karachi because this
part of the region’s history has been largely treated as unremarkable and
therefore unworthy of reflection in most writings on Pakistan. Although
recent accounts of the history of the city have noted that as a result of
Partition “[t]he most significant change was demographic,” they do not
examine why the Hindu and Sikh population left the city. They carry
essays which narrate how Parsi, Hindu, Muslim, British, and Goan Christian individuals contributed to the city’s pre-Partition growth and glory,
but by neglecting to examine the context of the departure of the city’s
important religious minority, they make it seem that it was “natural” for
them to have left what was claimed as a Muslim homeland.9 Sara Ansari,
a historian of Sind, in an essay which examines the impact of Partition
on Sind, focuses on Sindhi mixed feelings on the arrival of muhajirs, but
not on reasons for the exodus that was concomitant.10 However, I argue here that the departure of Hindus and Sikhs from Karachi was not
merely incidental but rather central to understanding the very tensions
of Partition’s ambiguous new nations. Could Hindus and Sikhs become
citizens of Pakistan without belonging to a “Muslim nation”? Or were
they considered Indian citizens from the start? As in Delhi, the combined
interventions of the two postcolonial states shaped this uncertain flow
of refugees, while Hindu houses became a source of contention in the
shifting geographies of cities and nation. Ultimately, the Hindu exodus
had effects well beyond Karachi, as further displacement of the region’s
minorities challenged the very equation of where north Indian Muslims
could belong, if not in Pakistan.
the push and pull of displacement
“Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress leaders should be informed that
Hindus of Sind cannot live in honor there and therefore the Indian
Dominion Government should take up the task of evacuating, relief
and rehabilitation,” Choithram P. Gidwani, the president of the Sind
Provincial Congress Committee, proclaimed to Rajendra Prasad after a
meeting of Sindhi Congressmen. Gidwani and other Congress leaders
of Sind campaigned vociferously for the Indian government to arrange
a planned evacuation of Sind’s minorities, along the lines carried out by
the MEO in other parts of West Pakistan, but the problem they faced
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the making of refugees, 1947
was that “due to peace [in the province], the Government of India [wa]s
not assisting them.”11
Because of the campaign by Sind’s Congressmen for the planned evacuation of Sind’s minorities, many of Pakistan’s leaders and bureaucrats
believed that the exodus of the economically significant Hindus of Sind
was being orchestrated by Congress leaders to sabotage the very existence of Pakistan. For instance, it was believed that “harijans” were being
encouraged to leave so that the sanitation of Karachi, Hyderabad, and
Sukkur would be impaired, resulting in “epidemic and pestilence.” More
seriously, the departure of Hindu merchants, bankers, and other businesses
would disrupt the economic life of Karachi and Sind, and this would
destabilize the nascent state.12 In keeping with such a view, Syed Hashim
Reza, the first post-independence administrator of Karachi, wrote in his
autobiography that soon after Partition, Acharya Kripalani, the president
of the All India Congress Committee (AICC), who was from Sind, visited
the province and advised Hindus and Sikhs to leave Sind as quickly as
possible. Arguing that as no “communal disturbances” had taken place in
Sind for centuries, Reza suggested that Kripalani was not so concerned
for the safety of the minorities but wanted to destroy the economic structure of the province.13 Sind police records also claim “on good authority
that though Kripalani openly advised Hindus not to migrate, he secretly
favored migration and asked Hindus to leave Sind as early as possible.”14
Later, in a Constituent Assembly debate, Hashim Gazder of Sind also took
this view when he claimed that Sindhi Hindus “were quite happy here
in Sind; there were no murders, no dacoities; there were no loots of any
kind.” Instead, he held that Sind’s minorities were not “pushed out” but
rather “they were pulled out according to a planned programme by the
Congress leaders” and Kripalani, who came “with the ostensible purpose
of telling people not to go from Sind . . . wherever he went he told them
to get out of Sind.”15
Despite this view held by Pakistani officials, large numbers of Hindus
and Sikhs had already begun to leave Sind even prior to Kripalani’s visit
in late September 1947. Ansari, for instance, notes that by mid-September
some fifty thousand “non-Muslims” had registered with local Congress
organizations for aid in leaving Sind.16 Although the first departures were
largely of Gujeratis, Marathis, and other non-Sindhi Hindus, as anticipated by Mudie,17 the advice of Kripalani, Gidwani, and other leaders
cannot alone account for the mass exodus.
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Hindu Exodus from Karachi
51
Despite the celebration of Sind’s pre-Partition “communal harmony,”
Mudie’s Fortnightly Reports suggest that there had been a growing political rift between the provincial Muslim League and the Congress. On a
number of provincial issues the Sind Muslim League’s stance was seen as
a foreboding of Muslim dominance, whereby economically significant
Hindus of the province would be marginalized.
For one, when the Sind Assembly opened on February 17, 1947, with
a Muslim League majority, the house broke with the region’s tradition by
adopting both the speaker and the deputy speaker from the League, when
the practice had been to select a deputy speaker from the opposition.18
Further, by March 1947 at least two divisive issues faced the house—the
Sind University Bill and the Sind Landholders Mortgage Bill. Even after
the separation of Sind from the Bombay Presidency, students in the region had to go to Bombay University to give their matriculation exams,
and therefore there had been a long-standing political consensus that Sind
needed its own university. However, a Sind University Bill which provided
for a Muslim majority on the various university bodies was passed by the
Muslim League–dominated Assembly, even though the Congress members
vehemently opposed it. The Education Ministry justified this legislation
on the basis that Muslims were severely underrepresented in education
and government in Sind.19 But with Partition imminent, the “controversy,”
widely covered by the press, did little to reassure the province’s Hindus, for
even after lengthy negotiations only token conciliatory resolutions were
passed: to set up a Board of Studies for Hindu Culture, as well as an advisory panel to represent minority interests. Similarly, the Sind Landholders
Mortgage Bill was seen as giving Muslim zamindars leverage over Hindu
banias by allowing a zamindar to give oral evidence at variance with a sale
deed.The Congress’s opposition to the passing of this bill was such that an
appeal was made to the viceroy in Delhi to withhold his assent to it.20
Both these bills were included in a polemical brochure produced by
the Sind Congress, “Why the exodus from Sind?”21 It argued that Hindus
were leaving Sind “because in actual fact, the Muslim League government
of Sind were even before Pakistan was established, deliberately and more
or less systematically pursuing with neck-break speed a policy of ruthless suppression of the Hindus of Sind” (emphasis added). The brochure
foregrounds the seeds of distrust in regional politics, now being rehearsed
amid the anxieties of Partition. At its core was the very uncertainty of
what was to be the nature of the Pakistani state, whether, claimed on
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behalf of Muslims, it could eschew the question of religious identity in
the making of its citizens.
Jinnah’s often-quoted speech of August 11, 1947—“in course of time,
Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims . . . in the political sense as citizens of the State”—is usually offered
as evidence of a promise of equal citizenship for all in the Pakistani state.
In his autobiography, Reza recalls accompanying Jinnah to the Swami
Narayan temple in the heart of Karachi, where “non-Muslim refugees”
from different parts of Sind were awaiting their departure by ship to India.
Jinnah, according to Reza, made every effort to reassure the province’s
Hindus, but they said “that while they had full trust in him, it could not
be said about the petty officials who had communal bias.”22 Ayub Khuhro,
the premier of Sind, and other Sindhi leaders also attempted to retain
Sind’s minorities, for they also feared a loss of cultural identity with the
Hindu exodus. However, when after the riots of January 6, 1948, Khuhro
toured Sind with Sri Prakasa, the Indian high commissioner, to urge the
Sindhi Hindus to not leave their homes, a Hindustan Times reporter observed that “Hindus stopped their car every few miles and urged for arrangements for early evacuation.”23
Furthermore, the Sind government attempted to use force to stem this
exodus by passing the Sind Maintenance of Public Safety Ordinance on
September 21, 1947. Given that the majority of Sind government servants
were Hindu, their departure meant in the initial stage that many offices
could function for only part of their working hours; half the civil and criminal courts were closed, and some banks and businesses were able to operate
for only a few hours a day. In addition, it was feared that the departure of
Hindu banias would lead to a breakdown in the rural credit system. Thus
the ordinance not only gave the government wide powers for policing the
province, but also allowed for the “control of essential services” so that those
people performing services deemed “essential to the life of the community”
were prohibited from leaving.24 The coercive ordinance only exacerbated
fears of mistreatment by the new state, and led to an increase in the exodus.
The Indian state’s official position on displacements outside of Punjab
was, broadly, that minorities should remain where they were, and in the
case of Sind, it was “not to encourage the evacuation of non-Muslims
from Sind,” although the Indian High Commission in Karachi would
give travel assistance to those who wished to depart.25 It has been argued
that in the case of Sind, the Indian high commissioner gave free ship
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53
tickets to those who wanted to leave, and thus encouraged migration,
although at the time the High Commission denied this.26
However, when the high commissioner protested against the Public
Safety Ordinance, he not only argued “that persons who desire permanently to go to India and to seek a home there should be afforded every facility
to do so.” Importantly he also stated that although “who is to be deemed
a citizen of Pakistan and who is a citizen of India” was still indeterminate
at this stage, “those who wish to go away permanently from Pakistan and
to live in India, have chosen to be the citizens of India.”27 Sardar Patel had
given an assurance prior to Partition that “whatever the definition [of Indian citizenship] may be, you can be assured that the Hindus and Sikhs of
Pakistan cannot be considered as aliens in India.”28 In Patel’s view, all Hindus
and Sikhs who resided in Pakistan were a natural part of an Indian nation,
and this underpinned the Indian state’s position on non-Muslim refugees.
When “serious communal rioting” broke out in Karachi on January 6,
1948, Bhaskar H. Rao, official recorder of the Indian government’s Story
of Rehabilitation, described it as an “orgy of looting and arson” in which
the Congress office in Karachi was also attacked.29 It marked the formal
change of the Indian government policy on Sind, and a Director General of Evacuation was appointed on January 14, 1948, to formally assist
the evacuation of “non-Muslims who wished to migrate from Sind to
India.”30 It was at this point that Sind’s “non-Muslim refugees” became
officially incorporated as “displaced persons” under the rubric of rehabilitation in Indian legislations to follow.
The Indian government’s response to Sind’s Hindus specifically, and to
Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan more generally, offered a resolution to where
these communities might belong. They could migrate to the territory of
India and become Indian citizens, and this remained the case even as restrictions on movement and citizenship laws began to be formulated over the
following years. This Indian position dramatically set apart and heightened
the question of Muslim belonging, as both the Indian and the Pakistani
governments handled Muslim refugees with considerable ambiguity.
states of emergency
Although “peaceful” conditions in Karachi were widely remarked upon, it
was a relative and contingent “peace,” for a state of emergency encompassed
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most of the subcontinent as stories of violence in Punjab and Delhi circulated through newspapers and by word of mouth. Its discursive effect can
be read in two words that appear in all the official reports in Sind—“panic”
and “fear.” It was thus “a state of uncertainty, bordering on panic” and “the
fear complex” that was used to explain the departure of the province’s Hindus. Rumors that Hindus would be slaughtered in place of goats and sheep
on Id-ul-Zuha day, or that their drinking water would be poisoned or that
their properties would be confiscated, entered police records as if they were
outrageous and therefore imaginary or fictive fears that were spreading unnecessary panic.31 But as writings on rumors in moments of social crisis
suggest, the “contagion” and meaning of rumors was constituted by the
wider context.32
Wild rumors operated alongside extremely partisan accounts of the
Punjab violence, the growing visible presence of Muslim refugees on
the streets, and a reported increase in stabbings and robberies. Police
reports list a string of crimes—a Sikh bookbinder’s shop set on fire in
Saddar, a crockery shop robbed in Joria Bazar, a temple desecrated, and
so on.33 These facts at another time may not have been as alarming to
the city’s Hindus, but in this context they served to heighten existing
anxieties. The Pakistani state attempted to respond with alacrity, and
Jinnah was particularly keen that “law and order” in Karachi be given
the highest priority. Thus in early September, curfew was imposed in
the city as a preventive measure, and then whenever there appeared to
be “trouble.”
However, curfew alone could not provide the necessary reassurance
to the city’s Hindu residents. The “trespass of Hindu houses by Moslem
refugees”34 became one of the most common crimes, and probably contributed the most to a sense of a changing social order in which the place
of Hindu residents of the city became uncertain. A Sindhi Muslim newspaper described how the arrival of Muslim refugees had resulted in Hindus
feeling like “a stranger or a foreigner in his own land of birth.” The author
noted that “unauthorized forcible occupation of houses and seizures of
property” were taking place. He gave an instance when a government
servant in Karachi had gone for a walk with his wife after locking the
house, but on his return found that it was occupied by Muslim refugees
who would not vacate the premises. He also noted that, in Ramaswami
quarters, houses of poor people were broken into and quietly occupied in
the absence of the occupants.35
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55
Gidwani similarly complained to Liaqat about this “lawlessness,” as he
noted that when “the inmates [of houses] go out on work and duty, the
locks are broken open, the belongings pilfered or thrown out and the flats
occupied with impunity. When the occupants return and ask for their
belongings only they are violently threatened and made to run away.”36
Thus in letters to Kripalani and other Congress leaders, Sindhi Hindus
noted with trepidation that “Punjabis,” referring to Muslim refugees, had
moved into Hindu buildings, making it “very difficult to live.”37
As police reports began to classify “trouble from the refugee” another
letter requested Congress’s help in leaving because “ladies cannot move
out on the roads being always under the fear of too many Punjabi Muslims moving on the roads.”38 Although an apparently trivial concern, it
articulated the uncertainty and fear that was generated by the arrival of
“Muslim refugees.” Thus many Hindu men who were employed in Karachi or had ancestral homes and businesses here, began to send their wives
and children, and other members of their families, to India, while they
remained in the city.
However, “Muslim refugees” were not the only source of anxiety.
Another account highlighted the role of the Pakistani state in requisitioning and allotting houses in which people were still living. It noted
that “although in several cases stay orders have been issued, considerable
excitement has been created among Hindus at the notices served on
them. It may be noted that only Hindus have been served with such
notices.” I discuss in the next section the measures taken by the Pakistani
state to house the new government in the city.The same account argued
that the government “interprets that any house or bungalow with two
or three persons constitutes an abandoned property.” It stated that it was
“true that several persons have sent part of their family outside, but on
that ground to drive out the remaining members of the family in the
streets looks extremely unreasonable.” In addition, it noted that representatives of the Hindu Cooperative Housing Societies had been called
by Minister Pir Ilahi Bux, who asked them to give the government four
or five bungalows from each society by making “certain adjustments”
such as “voluntarily housing two families in one house.”39 This process
of “making room” for the new state, albeit a piece-meal process, led to
the expression that “Sindhis [were] squeezed out of Sind.”40
Other letters to the AICC and Kripalani also record similar fears of
discrimination in the new state in urging the Indian state for help to
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leave. One writer argued that “violence in Punjab” coupled with “new
Ordinances from the Government [for housing], their Communal Policy
in service, education, business” were some of the reasons for leaving Sind.
The Piece Goods Merchants Association wrote to Kripalani for assistance
in relocating to Bombay, for they felt that “Muslim outsiders” were receiving facilities from the state over the “legitimate rights and interests of
the Hindu merchants.”41
However, not everyone wrote for help to leave. Some wrote seeking
reassurances to stay, and their letters suggest that the decision to leave for
many was a contingent one. One Shamdas wrote movingly from Sehwan,
“well known from Kalander Lal Shabaz whose shrine and fair is famous
throughout the world.” He worried that if “at any time situation at Karachi and Hyderabad go worse and my relations might migrate . . . what
will be the fate of mine and of my valuable property on which my large
family of twelve members is depending?” A Mr. Malkani wrote to Nehru
that “Sind is today in the grip of a tidal wave of panic and migration
which none but you or Bapu [Gandhi] can stop.You alone can allay this
panic and reduce the resulting emigration.”42
A large number of letters were from the employees of Karachi Port
Trust, as they had initially believed that they would have the possibility of
“opting” to work for India or Pakistan.43 When they found out that they
were not included in this scheme, they wrote individual letters of appeal
for help. One Mr. Thadani of the Port Trust made his case to Kripalani
as follows:
I find that many Hindus are leaving Sind. It may be taken for granted
that nothing untoward incident may happen in Sind as both Pakistan
and Sind governments have taken strong measures to protect minorities but as many have left and many more are thinking of leaving it
may appear awkward for the remaining Hindus to remain in Sind. . . .
I think all who remain will be without their kith and kins. It will
therefore be advisable if one leaves early “sooner the better.”44
However, the president of the Sarva Hindu Sind Panchayat wrote to
Kripalani to ask for the Sind Congress to be dissolved so that his party
could instead represent Hindu interests in the Sind legislature, and provide leadership to those who were considering staying but were uncertain. He optimistically “calculated that 70 percent of Sind Hindus will
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not leave and if things grow better—as it is hoped—a large number of
evacuees will return back.”45
The Panchayat president’s analysis foregrounds the contingent nature
of many people’s decisions to leave their homes, as well as their hope to
return if conditions allowed it. It is with this ambivalence that displacements in Sind began, with many people leaving their ancestral homes
as a temporary or uncertain decision. However, the shift in the Indian
government’s official policy toward Sind’s Hindus with the establishment
of the Director General of Evacuations, and growing disputes over Hindu
houses and lands in the effort to house Muslim refugees, slowly congealed
the flow of people.
karachi’s housing crisis
One letter to the Urdu newspaper, Jang, argued that there were three
groups of displaced persons that the term muhajir encompassed in reference to those who had arrived in Karachi and were in need of housing.
First, there were Muslim government employees from all over India who
had “opted” to work for the Pakistan government and were looking for
housing for their families. Second, there were sarmayadar muhajirs, those
migrants with sarmaya or capital who could afford to buy houses for
themselves. And finally, there were the tabah-o-barbad muhajirs who had
lost everything and were destitute.46
Prior to Partition, Karachi had been a small provincial center, albeit
Jinnah’s birthplace, and was declared the new capital when it was offered
by the Sind Muslim League.47 Because the city had to house a federal
government and all its personnel, largely coming in from the “outside,” in
Karachi, and unlike Delhi, a housing crisis was already anticipated, albeit
not of the proportions that ensued. Even though government employees
were asked not to bring their families with them, Mudie anticipated having to find accommodation for about 20,000 people in one month, an
extravagant number given Karachi’s size.48
The Sindh government vacated a number of its premises for the federal government and several military barracks were converted to house
government employees. Despite these measures, for the first years the
government of Pakistan operated “out of packing crates, hutments,
tents,”49 and many government employees remained without housing.
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Reza recalled with sentiment in his memoir that the “Central Government had to start from scratch with all sorts of make-shift arrangements.
Assistant Secretaries and Superintendents had to work in open verandahs. Thorns were used instead of pins, stools and benches were used
instead of chairs and no one complained, such was the joy of working
for one’s own Government and people.”50 Such felicitous recollections
of Karachi’s beginnings as Pakistan’s capital are common in recent writings on Karachi.51 Amina apa, who initially lived in a room in Martin
Quarters, a converted barrack, recalled how seven of her adult brothers
and sisters had to live with their elder brother, a government employee,
and his wife and children: “Ek hı nalka tha, aur subha men lambi line lagti
thı . . . magar there were no complaints, woh mahol hı esa tha [there was only
one tap, and in the morning a long line would form . . . but there were
no complaints, those conditions were such].”
However, these conditions were not felicitous for everyone, or borne
with such forbearance by everyone in the city. In order to house the
government, legislations were passed to control building materials and
requisition housing, which, as I noted earlier, affected the Hindu residents
of the city differently. For instance, Mudie saw his housing task as that of
displacing the city’s Hindu population when he remarked that “[t]he Pakistan Government want to bring 4000 clerks, in addition to officers. To
turn 4000 clerks, mostly Hindu, with their wives and “family members”
out of their houses in Karachi and to put in their places 4000 Muslims,
mostly from the Punjab and the UP, in one month, is administratively
impossible except under war conditions.”52
However, when government servants began arriving from the terrible
conditions of Purana Qila and other Muslim camps, they came to Karachi
with their whole families. As a result there was not even sufficient housing for officers, and the Estates Office in charge of housing government
servants in general was inundated with more requests than it could fulfill.
One “grief-stricken and poor” government clerk wrote a newspaper story that described his suffering after he arrived at Karachi’s train station:
I spent the night on the platform there only, and then the next
morning reported to work. At the same time I put in a request
for a quarter, and then returned to my family on the platform, to
find that my family had been removed from the station and put on
the street. This was the harshness of the railway officials. Then we
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remained at the station as my wife had fever and we were worried.
I wrote clearly in my request that my wife and children are sick because they have spent the last three months in extreme hardship.53
He went on to narrate the ill-treatment he received at the Estates Office, and concluded that “itna tabah-o-barbad ho-ne ke ba”d abhi kuch kami
reh gaı thı jo yahan puri ho rahi hai [after being devastated so much if there
was anything left it is being completed here].”
There were Muslim League supporters and educated and wealthier
Muslims, the sarmayadars, who had chosen to move to Pakistan or establish
second homes here, and in anticipation of Partition had bought houses in
the city. Mudie noted that “[t]he leading Muslim Advocate in Lucknow
told me recently that he was to retire in a year and settle down in Karachi,
and one of the largest Muslim taluqdars in Oudh bought a house here
about two months ago. Even the Nawab of Bhopal is trying to buy land
near Karachi on which to build a house.”54 These muhajirs were able to buy
properties from departing Hindu families, and this set them apart.
But by early September, Hidayatullah noted that “destitute refugees”
were arriving in Karachi at the rate of 400 daily.55 By mid-September,
27,000 refugees were reported to have come to Sind, and a week later their
numbers had doubled.56 It was these Muslim refugees who were considered
to be the “refugee problem”57 since the increase in incidents of violence
in the city was associated with them, and they were received with some
hostility by the Sind government. Initially there were no arrangements for
organizing them into camps, and they quickly became a visible presence in
the city as footpaths filled up.58 By the time some camps were set up many
more refugees had arrived, and housing refugees became a critical issue.
The housing crisis put the Pakistani state in a predicament similar to
that of the Indian state with Delhi. On the one hand the Pakistani state
was attempting to reassure Sind’s Hindus to remain in their homes but
on the other there were thousands of shelterless Muslim refugees. However, in response to the housing crisis, the government passed the Sind
Economic Rehabilitation Bill for taking over “abandoned” properties and
allotting them to Muslim refugees. This task of taking over and allotting
“abandoned” houses to muhajirs fell to the Rent Controller’s Office. A
Custodian of Evacuee Property was not set up in Karachi until 1948,
for unlike the Punjab and Delhi there had been no instant “mass abandonment” due to violence. This also made the Rent Controller’s task an
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extremely difficult one, for although Hindus were leaving, it was unclear
if a house was “abandoned” or not if the owner left without declaring
his intentions. As I argued earlier, in those conditions most people were
uncertain of the future and their decisions to leave were largely tentative,
contingent. So many had locked their homes and gone but, with the hope
of returning once conditions improved. Furthermore, in many cases part
of a family remained in Karachi while another left for India. So although
Hindus were leaving, their houses were not “empty.” At the same time
“abandoned houses” were being demanded by angry Muslim refugees
who claimed an entitlement to the new nation-state.
The first large group of Muslim refugees arrived from Delhi.The Urdu
newspaper Jang, which had also moved from Delhi to Karachi, initially
catered to Delhi’s Muslim refugees, carrying announcements of those who
had arrived and were looking for their relatives, lists of missing people,
and detailed stories of what was going on in Delhi. Hakims, tailors, restaurants, and a number of other businesses used Jang to announce their new
addresses in Karachi, as well as to invite job applications from cooks and
tailors specifically from Delhi.This was also where muhajir grievances were
registered, and it is here that the struggles over housing are most evident.
Muhajir anger was two-fold—on the one hand it was directed against
the Pakistani state and in particular the Sind government, and on the other
it was directed against Hindus of the city. The ambiguous reception of the
Sind government toward muhajirs led to complaints of ill-treatment and “unislamic behaviour”59 for not receiving them with the hospitality that they
had expected of ansars, following the example of the people of Medina who
received Mohammad and his muhajirs in a.d. 622. The cartoons in Jang are
graphic expressions of this sense of being duped or deceived into believing
that they would be welcomed in Pakistan, which would be a haven for them
(see figures 2.1 and 2.2). As one Jang editorial remarked, “the heaven that
[they] had imagined and come to, it is completely different from that.”60
The perception that the government did not care about their wellbeing was most pronounced when a Muhajir Committee, set up by the
government of Sind, resigned on the grounds that they were unable to
do their job of housing muhajirs. Jang argued that although the committee had presented its problems to the chief minister of Sind, they were
met with indifference. In addition, the Rent Controller’s Office became
the focus of a great deal of dissatisfaction, since some felt it had become
corrupt in the face of a demand for houses that exceeded supply. There
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figure 2.1 “What sycophancy (khushamad) to win our hearts / How eyes turned away
after obtaining what was wanted,” Jang, January 1, 1948. Right image, a Sindhi says
to a Delhi/UP Muslim, before Partition was obtained, “Please come, the memory of
Muhajireen-e-Medina will come alive.” Left image, after Partition was obtained: “Sind
is only for Sindhis.You get out!”
At bottom: Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani has said that before the establishment of Pakistan, Muslims were told that the new government would protect 10
crore Muslims, but now the ill-fated Muslims are being told that in Pakistan there is
no space for them.
were charges that only “those who bribe get a house,” and that in return
for payoffs several allotment orders were being issued for a single house.
Thus Jang argued that “poor muhajirs who get an allotment order do not
get a house because several allotment notices are issued because of the
high amount of corruption.”61
Because the Rent Controller’s Office was the only means to officially obtain houses for those who could not afford to buy them,
muhajirs gathered there every day in large numbers. It is not surprising
that it became the site of many altercations. On one occasion, Jang reported that a refugee entered the Rent Controller’s Office to tell him
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figure 2.2 “Here work is done by donkeys,” Jang, December 9, 1947.The pickets read
as follows: “BSc. London, Dr. of Lit. (Germany), B.A. Aligarh, Poet/Writer, Artist, B.A.
(Oxon) Bar-at-Law, B.A. LLB, etc.” The message is that in Pakistan’s capital, donkeys
are employed, but educated people are lying around and no one is even taking the
work of a donkey cart driver from them.
his complaints, and the rent controller slapped and pushed him out
of his office. This immediately fed into a general perception of insult
and ill-treatment of muhajirs in the new state, and a threatening crowd
gathered and started chanting anti–rent controller slogans. A frightened
rent controller, it was reported, sneaked out through a back door and
the office was closed. Jang sympathized with the muhajir predicament
when it remarked that “on the one hand non-Muslims are asking twice
thrice the price for their houses and goods, and on the other hand
people who have to go to the Rent Controller’s Office have to face so
much harassment.”62
Thus government attempts to convince Sindhi Hindus to stay in the
province were criticized by muhajirs as “the Hindu-appeasing policy” of
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figure 2.3 “We left Delhi but they haven’t left us,” Jang, December 26, 1947. Right to
left, counterclockwise: 1) In Delhi, Hindu army fires at a Muslim. 2) In Delhi, Hindu
police beat a Muslim with a stick. 3) In Delhi, a Muslim is evicted from his house. 4)
After coming to Pakistan, a Hindu landlord says “Get out or I’ll call the police.” 5) In
offices, Hindu employees place obstacles. A Muslim controller says, “It’s only twelve
o’clock. How will work get done like this?”The Hindu replies,“We only work for ourselves.” 6) Now Muslims have to understand [illegible] if they are in Pakistan or not.
the government, and Hindus became the focus of both anger and suspicion. While many muhajirs, including those from Delhi, were survivors of
considerable violence, the resentment of ill-treatment elsewhere became
directed against Hindus in Sind. A cartoon titled “We left Delhi but they
have not left us” illustrates this sentiment (see figure 2.3). There was indignation that Hindus were evacuating safely to India while Muslim refugees were being “plundered” in India. “Sind’s Hindus are so lucky,” one
article remarked, “that although the rest of the country is on fire Sindh
is safe . . . and they are able to sell their ten-year-old and small houses
for double, triple the price.”63 In addition, Hindu loyalty to Pakistan was
questioned, as described in the cartoon which declared that their hearts
were still in India (see figure 2.4). Sinister intentions were attributed to
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figure 2.4 “Come and give a helping hand,” Jang, March 23, 1948. The car being
pushed is marked “Pakistan.” The man says to the “Hindu” standing aside, “Wearing
our clothes is not enough.Your heart is still in India. Come and give a helping hand.”
Note: Quaid-e-Azam has told Parliament members from East Bengal in answer to a
question that they have to help run the government.
the city’s Hindus as claims were made by Jang that “for the third time attempts have been made to poison the water tank of government quarters
at Jacob Lines and Jat Lines.” (See figure 2.5.) It remarked with bitterness
that “yet the Sind government is dreaming of their return.”64
By questioning their degree of belonging and rendering them suspicious,
an equation emerged in muhajir opinion whereby Hindus were believed to
be leaving (sooner or later) and so their houses were there for the taking. If
there were still people living in the houses this was only because they were
trying to sell or rent their properties to the sarmayadar muhajirs. “Karachi’s
rich Hindus” (as well as Sind’s Muslims, as in figure 2.6) were seen as making a profit out of their plight, in particular through the customary pagri
system. A pagri was a form of “illegal payment” that had developed as a way
to circumvent colonial rent restrictions. Landlords demanded a large lumpsum payment in lieu of the low monthly rent, and this also made it very
difficult for refugees without means to rent houses in the city.65
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figure 2.5 “New Madness,” Jang, November 19, 1947. “We have received news that
the Hindu who tried to poison the Jacob Lines tank was arrested by a Hindu policeman who has deemed him to be mad.” In the image he is being taken to the mental
asylum instead of the city jail.
This situation, combined with the corruption and inefficiencies of the
Rent Controller’s Office, was seen as leaving poor muhajirs on the streets
with no choice but to “break in and occupy houses.” Breaking in was still
not a resolution to their housing problem, for after forcible occupation,
“they go and submit a request for allotment for that house. But if someone
has already submitted an application for that house before him, then the
house is allotted to the first person, who comes with the police to take
possession, and the second muhajir is once again on the street.” Thus the
poor refugees were “roaming with their families from place to place.”66
Jang editorials were largely sympathetic to these seizures, and explained that:
In this regard, Hindus have also left, but leaving behind one or
two persons in the house. Often muhajirs find such people’s closed
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figure 2.6 “Lo, they are also saying that there is honor and shame / If I knew that
I would not have given up my home,” Jang, December 1, 1947. Right, muhajir says:
“Thank God! I have reached Pakistan.” He receives the reply: “You are welcome, you
are our Muslim brother.” Left image, muhajir says: “I need a house to live in.” He receives the reply: “Brother, first arrange the money for the pagri.”
houses and they think that they are empty, and therefore they try to
occupy/seize it. Hindus complain, make a noise and run away from
Sind. Then the government tries to stop them and for this it comes
up with such harsh policies.67
The “harsh policies” that the government adopted involved reversing these
occupations through police intervention.These attempts were represented
in Jang as denying muhajirs of their rightful housing. One letter to Jang
complained of a “Hindu policeman” in Artillery Maidan who despite
“hundreds of empty houses” in the area, prevented those even with permits from the rent controller from occupying the houses there.The writer
complained that “without finding out the occupying Muslim’s position he
speaks in a crude and rough manner and this is unacceptable.”68
Several proposals were put forward, none of which involved the Rent
Controller’s Office, to identify houses which were truly “empty.” One plan
was for the government of Sind to announce that any Hindu leaving Karachi should inform the Refugee Committee that his room would be
“empty,” and be allowed to leave only on approval from the committee.
This way the Refugee Committee could make a list and provide housing
to the Muslim refugees.69 Another article in Jang argued that “stopping
the fleeing Hindus and finding housing for the muhajirs” were connected
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problems: Hindus were leaving because “muhajireen threaten them” in order to get housing. Therefore identifying “empty houses” was imperative.
The Muhajir Committee could be given extended powers to find houses
and issue orders for occupation. In order to find “empty houses” the ration
card should be taken of any Hindu leaving Karachi, and from that their
home address could be found out and added to “the list of vacated houses.”
Furthermore, only fifteen days should be given to Hindus who make “the
excuse of temporary departure” and then the house should be considered
vacated. Also, the Muhajir Committee should enforce allotments and not
allow transfers in order to end competing occupations and pagri-bazi.70
The Sind government was unlikely to give such powers to a Muhajir
Committee, and continued trying to reverse occupations which were
increasing with growing numbers of muhajirs. In December, a crowd of
reportedly over five hundred refugees gathered and attempted to forcefully occupy a building which still had people living in it. The residents
fought back the attackers, and the police arrived and removed the muhajir intruders. Jang focused on the plight of the homeless refugees and
described them as screaming and yelling in desperation when they were
brutally pulled out by the police.71 But such occupations, despite their
reversals, could only have been terrifying for the residents, as they became
threatened on an everyday basis.
The riots of January 6, 1948, were in a sense a continuation of this
ongoing violence, and massive looting and seizures of houses were an
important part of the riots. The scale and visible nature of the violence
dispelled the notional “peace” in Karachi, and sharpened contending political discourses. It became an occasion for local Hindu leaders as well as
Sindhi Congressmen in India to emphasize that “Hindus no longer feel
safe in Sind,” but it also allowed the Sind government to announce that
there was no more place for muhajirs.72
Jang made conciliatory statements that Sind’s Hindus should not leave.
Since refugees were targets of policing and the refugee camps were
searched for arms, Jang complained it was unfair to blame muhajirs for the
violence. As one article argued, “Muslim muhajirs saved not just one, but
hundreds of Hindu lives,” the present restrictions against them were unwarranted, and the searches were particularly harsh. Khuhro was targeted
for his statements blaming muhajirs for the violence, and led one editorial
to state that “the premier of Sind is a friend of the Hindus and does not
want to see Hindustan’s Muslim muhajirs in Sind.”73
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the making of refugees, 1947
surplus and quotas
As Sara Ansari has argued, Sindhi Muslim leaders tried to limit the flow
of Muslim refugees into the province because they began to fear that the
refugees would benefit more than Sind’s Muslims from Partition, and that
Sind’s economic and cultural life would be impaired by the Hindu exodus.74
As a result, tensions arose between the Sind government and the Pakistan
government as to how many Muslim refugees Sind could accommodate as
part of rehabilitation efforts. A file on the discussion between the provincial
and central government is quite revealing of the science of planning and
rehabilitation in the making of a national economy of a modern state.
The Ministry of Refugees and Rehabilitation argued, on the basis of
figures provided by the MEO, that West Punjab had received a “surplus” of
12 lakh refugees. The notion of “surplus” was based on numbers of Muslim refugees that had arrived “over and above the non-Muslim population
that ha[d] left the province” of West Punjab. It was stated that this “excess”
was composed entirely of “agriculturalists” since the “exchange” of “urban
non-agriculturalists” had been almost equal.75 In order to “distribute” this
surplus, a conference of district officers was held November 22 and 23,
1947, at Lahore to discuss how many refugees each district could “absorb.”
“Quotas” were set for each province, and it was agreed by the bureaucrats
present that Sind should “absorb” 5 lakh of this “excess.” Their planning
was informed by “A Note on Statistics of the Refugees and Evacuees
Problem,” a set of tables and charts prepared by Professor M. Hasan at the
Secretary of the Board of Economic Inquiry of West Punjab.76
This quantifying of people into classifiable populations that could be
neatly represented in calculations of planning is not in itself remarkable.
James C. Scott has argued how aspirations of “legibility” have been central
to a bureaucratic and scientific control of “reality” and this is borne out
here.77 A statistical notion of “surplus” and “quotas” was extracted from
the terror and confusion of people’s lives, to make “refugees” manageable in a national economy. However, these calculations had far-reaching
power in constructing a political common sense about how many Muslim refugees the Pakistani state could accommodate. In this equation, the
Pakistani state was a finite territorial entity which could only accommodate as many people as equaled those “non-Muslim refugees” who
were leaving. The notion of surplus or excess was predicated on assump-
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69
tions about how many people a piece of land could support, assumptions
which more contemporary debates on “overpopulation” and “population
control” have since brought into question.78
Furthermore, Professor Hasan based his “absorption figures” for Sind on
the numbers of “non-Muslim evacuees who must have left the Province of Sind
by now.” According to Hasan, Sind had 7.81 lakh non-Muslim “agriculturalists or rural non-agriculturalists,” and “as most of these must have left Sind”
(both emphases added), he argued that the province could accept 5 lakh
Muslim refugees in their place. However, he himself noted that his calculations faced the “limitation that all non-Muslims will not be evacuating from
Sind.” Here the term “evacuee” no longer meant a person leaving to take
temporary refuge, but rather presumed a permanent departure, and an entire religious community was being regarded as “evacuee” to make “space”
in a new nation regarded as both territorially and corporeally contained.
When Sind’s political leaders refused to accept their “quotas” of refugees and contended that Sind could instead accept only 1.5 lakh refugees,
the quibble over numbers was not, as Scott argues, merely planning gone
wrong, because on-the-ground realities had not been sufficiently accounted
for.“Planning” by the new state had to grapple with an emerging politics of
entitlement to the nation. It is important to note here that in the discussions
that ensued there was no argument on the calculated numbers of departing
“non-Muslims,” or on the question of their possible return to their homes.
Ayub Khuhro, in a letter to Jinnah, argued that Hasan’s figures were incorrect on a number of accounts. Khuhro stated that there were 14 lakh Hindus
in Sind but most of these were living in urban areas and 2.5 lakh in Karachi
alone. However, he argued that 4 lakh Muslims had already “replaced the
outgoing urban Hindus since the 15th of August 1947,” and in other towns of
Sind the population had also doubled. Furthermore, people were still coming
in by rail from Rajputana and by ship to Karachi, and there was “no means of
stopping or controlling this influx.” Thus Khuhro pointed out that Muslim
refugees coming in from outside divided Punjab were not being included in
the official resettlement calculus, but were a reality in Sind.
Khuhro argued importantly that in rural areas, the center of contention, “the Hindus were no doubt owners of land but it was the Muslim
who actually tilled the soil,” and the Sindhi Muslim peasants should have
first rights to the land.Thus according to Khuhro, this left only lands abandoned by Sikhs in Sind, an area which could support 10,000 families, that
is, a total of 50,000 people. In addition, Sind’s [Muslim] zamindars might
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perhaps be persuaded to employ another 10,000 families. By this means he
considered it possible to resettle not more than 1 lakh refugees.79
Khuhro’s resistance to the central government’s rehabilitation figures was
based on claims of entitlement for Sind’s Muslims to the new economy of
the nation. But his calculations of how many Muslim refugees could be
accommodated on Sind’s lands drew upon the same assumptions as that of
the central government—that the land could support only the number of
“evacuees” who were leaving.This conception, of people on land in an economy of the modern state, filtered into political debates on how many Muslim
refugees from India a finite territory could accommodate, and thus there
was a perceived legitimate need to draft limits to the proclaimed nation.
unmaking the “muslim nation”
If Professor Hasan’s statistics provided a mathematical clarity for the shaping
of bureaucratic policy, there were also numerous claims on the idea of the
Muslim nation which now had to contend with these calculations of the
modern state. In both Jang and Al-Jamiat, in Karachi and Delhi, editorials
and articles debated the ambiguous status of Muslims who remained in India in the midst of massive, ongoing displacements. They attempted to reconcile ideas of a Muslim nation with shifting realities of two nation-states,
and had divergent views on the ongoing Hindu exodus from the city.
As Muslim refugees in Karachi confronted substantial ambivalence
from the Sind government, which wanted to restrict their numbers, an
important narrative of “muhajir qurbani” or “sacrifice” began to take shape
as a trope to claim inclusion in the emerging nation-state. This trope
made claims to extraordinary entitlement to Pakistan by arguing that
muhajirs, or north Indian Muslims, had been at the forefront of the Pakistan movement, and had made the greatest qurbani for it by leaving their
homes in India. For instance, one Jang editorial argued:
Pak sarzameen Karachi men ek taraf Hind se muhajireen arahe hain. In
men ziyada tar log hain jo Pakistan ka ‘alam baland karne aur Pakistan
hasil karne men sab se ziyada qurbanian di hain.
Muhajirs are coming from India to the pure land of Karachi. Most of
these people made the most sacrifices for raising the flag of Pakistan
and for obtaining Pakistan.
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71
This trope would gain increasing prominence in the ensuing years as a
way of arguing against growing restrictions by the Pakistani state on the
coming of Muslim refugees from India. It was also fundamentally tied to
the argument that Muslims in India could not be legitimately excluded
from a Pakistani nation-state, for they were a part of a Muslim nation that
the very idea of Pakistan was meant to “safeguard.”
In the introduction I referred to H.S. Suhrawardy’s extraordinary address to the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, in which he argued
that there was no contradiction in continuing to live in India and being
a member of Pakistan’s legislature. The core of his address centered on
Pakistan’s responsibility to Muslims that remained in India:
At the time when we were divided, it was not said as I have heard
it said by the Satraps of Pakistan that Muslims of the Indian Union
were warned that you will be in the hopeless minority, that you
may be exterminated, that you may have to suffer all kinds of difficulties, that you may be enchained, enslaved and that the Muslims
of the Indian Union then said that it did not matter if that was going to be their lot so long as a large number of their brethren living
in the majority Provinces were able to have an administration of
their own. . . . Sir, that is only one side of the story. The other side
of the story was that you told the Muslims of the Indian Union at
the same time that the division of India would solve the communal
problem; that that would be the greatest safeguard for the minorities
within Pakistan and the greatest safeguard for the minorities within
the Indian Union.You have forgotten that aspect of it. . . .Your corners are closed to the Muslims of the Indian Union. You have said
that they may not come here and perhaps, Sir, from the point of
view of Pakistan that is the best policy, because if the Muslims of
the Indian Union have to leave those shores and are decimated on
the way, say, out of three crores even one and a half crores find their
way struggling into Pakistan, Pakistan will be overwhelmed. It is
perhaps true that you have no other alternative but to say that. I do
not want you, Sir, to fight for me . . . I want you to give a fair deal
to the minorities in Pakistan.80
His address grappled with the claim of the Pakistan movement that
“the division of India would solve the communal problem.” But how was
the reality of a Pakistani state to serve as a “safeguard” for the Muslim
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the making of refugees, 1947
minorities in India? Although critical of attempts to keep out Muslim
refugees, he believed that the state would be “overwhelmed” if large
numbers of Muslim refugees came to Pakistan, and argued that there was
“no other alternative” but to give “a fair deal to minorities in Pakistan” as
a way to protect Muslim minorities in India.
This was the “hostage theory,” and it found repeated expression in
the public debates that followed. After the riots of January 6, 1948, a Jang
editorial appealed to the paper’s muhajir readers to maintain peace in the
city, since riots in Karachi would adversely affect Muslim minorities in
India. It argued that:
Hindustani musalman Pakistan ke musalmanon se kuch nahin chahta.Woh
sirf us se tadabur aur sabr ki bheek mangta raha hai. Hame chahye ke hum
un apne bhaion ko jin ki qurbanion se hame dolat-e-azadi naseeb huı hai
un ki zindagiyon ko khatre men nahin dale.
Hindustan’s Muslims don’t ask anything of Pakistan’s Muslims.They
only beg of them forbearance and patience. We should not put the
lives of our brothers, whose sacrifices have given us this treasure of
freedom, in danger.81
This logic of the “hostage theory” tied the treatment of Muslim minorities in India to the treatment meted out to Hindus in Pakistan. Muslim refugees in Karachi had to be “patient” with Hindus in the city, for
aggression on their part could put their “brothers” who remained in India
in jeopardy. This formulation made Muslims in Pakistan responsible for
the well-being of Hindustan’s Muslims, and for Muslim refugees/muhajirs
this link had meaning not only through an abstract imaginary of a Muslim nation, but through real ties of family and friends. However, to make
an argument for Pakistan’s duty toward Muslims in India, the diversity of
Muslims who remained in India was harnessed to the cause of Pakistan.
For instance, one Jang editorial wrote that “those poor [Muslims in India],
their only fault is that they are Muslims and have spent their whole life at
the forefront in the support of Muslim League.”82
It is striking, then, that in Delhi’s Al-Jamiat, an Urdu newspaper of the
pro-Congress Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind, Pakistan was also held responsible
for collective Muslim well-being through the treatment of its hostage
religious minorities:
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73
In Pakistan, extreme concern is being shown for 4 crore Indian
Muslims, but Pakistan better open its ears and listen that by upsetting their non-Muslim people they are doing no service to us. All
roads to our aid are closed, except one—the [good] treatment of
their non-Muslims.83
This is one of the reasons why the Hindu exodus from Karachi became so significant, for the near-total departure of non-Muslims from West
Pakistan unsettled the workability of this tenuous hostage theory. Thus it
became important, according to opinions in Al-Jamiat, that conditions be
created in Pakistan for Hindus who had left to return back to their homes. It
was argued that this refugee return was the “human and religious duty” of
the Pakistan government. Al-Jamiat campaigned vociferously for reversing
displacements and for the return of refugees to their homes. For instance,
it promoted the “Phir Basao Conference” led by Lala Bhim Singh for the
return of Hindus and Sikhs to their ancestral homes in West Punjab.
An announcement in Al-Jamiat (see figure 2.7) is particularly poignant in
making this point. It appealed to Delhi’s Muslims to write letters to Liaqat
Ali Khan, who was to visit Delhi, to not only bring back Sind’s Hindus, but
also cancel the agreement on the transfer of populations in divided Punjab.
It argued that this, the return of a substantial religious minority in West
Pakistan, was the only possibility for Muslims in India to “live in peace.”84 It
is noteworthy that this letter-writing campaign focused on Liaqat Ali Khan,
and not the Congress leadership of independent India.
However, in Jang, in opposition to reversing displacements to uphold a
failing hostage theory, there also emerged ideas of a total “exchange of populations.”This total “exchange of populations” had been clamored for by a
range of different groups, including those who saw it as a logical outcome
of Partition and essential for the making of a Hindu nation.85 Here these
ideas were attempts to resolve the perceived dilemma of how to “safeguard”
Muslims in India. An article on tabadala-e-abadi (exchange of populations)
argued that “[d]ue to Pakistan and Partition, crores of Muslims are now
slaves of the Indian government, and crores of Hindu have been freed of
the Pakistan government.” Therefore, given the departure of minority religious communities from West Pakistan, the “Pakistan government should
announce that all the Muslims in India should be brought over here.”
However this exchange was proposed only across the western border, since
religious minorities in East and West Bengal were perceived as “balanced.”
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the making of refugees, 1947
figure 2.7 “Write a letter to the prime minister of Pakistan,” Al-Jamiat, June 14, 1948:
“The Pakistani prime minister is coming to Delhi. If you want to live in peace then write
this letter. ‘Dear Prime Minister: The non-Muslims who have been forced to become
evacuees from Pakistan should be reassured and brought back to Pakistan and given a
chance to resettle, and responsibility should be taken to protect their property and lives.
The agreement on the transfer of populations between East and West Punjab should be
cancelled. Indian Union’s four and a half crore Muslims are making this proposition. If
the Indian Muslims’ proposition is accepted, believe us, both countries will live in peace
and prosperity.’”
Importantly, this notion that the chief constraint against all Muslims coming from India to Pakistan lay in the latter’s territorial limits (an equation
of how many people a land’s resources could support) was resolved by
making such an exchange conditional upon an expansion of those territorial limits through mutual negotiation with India. This idea of a total
exchange of populations on the basis of religious community, and conditioned on more land, reappeared, as we shall see, with greater force in ensuing years.86
The belief that Muslims who remained in India were brothers who
needed to be saved (apne bichare hue bhaion ko bachane ke liye) was so strong
in the muhajir press that the predicament that the state could not shoulder
“the burden” of unlimited Muslim refugees, whom it was nevertheless
obligated to protect, found repeated expression:
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Hindu Exodus from Karachi
75
. . . now the biggest problem facing both governments is how to
protect the minorities in both places.We cannot accept that Pakistan
rejoin the Indian Union and are opposed to it . . . at the same time
we cannot leave the [Muslim] minorities unprotected . . . [A]t the
present time Pakistan cannot take the burden of India’s Muslims, if
they should migrate and come to Pakistan . . . so how should these
innocent Muslims be saved, who because they fought and struggled
so hard for Pakistan, are now in this unenviable predicament.87
Others suggested an intergovernmental mechanism like the Minority
Board, but it was believed that such a board could only be effective if a significant number of Hindus remained in Pakistan. Therefore the refrain—
“We must try and keep as many Hindus as possible in Pakistan to protect
the Muslim minorities on the other side”—found repeated articulation.
One of the recommendations of the Minority Board had been that both
the All India Muslim League and the All India Congress should cease to
function as unified organizations operating in two states, and be separated
in command and direction. One of the reasons for its recommendation
was that because the Muslim League was being blamed for the Partition,
Muslims in India were being persecuted. But there was opposition to this
idea on the grounds that the Muslim League was deemed responsible for
all Muslims of the subcontinent, and north Indian Muslims “who were in
the forefront of the League’s struggle for Pakistan” needed to be strengthened, not abandoned, by Pakistan’s Muslim League.88 Thus this proposal by
the Minority Board for improving the condition of Muslim minorities in
India was perceived as severing ties between Pakistan’s Muslims and India’s
Muslims, and this was considered unacceptable at the time.
One writer proposed that a stronger Pakistani high commissioner be
appointed in India. This high commissioner would take an active role
in the protection of Muslim minorities there, go wherever there were
“communal problems,” and “talk to the Indian government in strong and
fearless terms.”89 The writer’s proposal was of course unclear about how
a Pakistani high commissioner’s authority would be constituted, or what
would be the national status of the group the high commissioner would
be protecting as a representative of the Pakistani state.
In another “solution” to the predicament of Muslims that remained in
India, a Jang editorial tried to gather support for a proposal put forward by
the editor of Patna’s New Life newspaper. Syed Mohammad Jalil argued that
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the making of refugees, 1947
it had become impossible for them, Indian Muslims, to remain as Muslims
in India, and that this was ultimately “the failure of Pakistan.” His view of
the Indian Muslim predicament (or Jang’s representation of it) was extremely dire. In his view there were only three “roads” open to Indian Muslims:
1) to migrate to Pakistan, but there was not enough space for them there;
2) to become Hindu, but this was also not deemed acceptable; or 3) to be
slowly killed off.
Given this dire landscape, it was with some urgency that Jalil suggested
the creation of “Muslim zones” within India where the 4.5 crore Muslim
minorities could be protected. He asked muhajirs to fight alongside the Muslims in India to appeal to the United Nations to intervene and protect Indian
Muslims. He argued that even if the UN refused to take any action, at least
their plight would be given the status of an “inter-national” issue.Then pressure could be brought to bear upon the Indian government to make distinct
“Muslim zones” within Indian territory where Muslims could live with security.90 This idea of multiple “Muslim zones” within India was not particularly original, and drew upon previous schemes from the 1930s formulated
prior to the Pakistan demand.91 The Muslim predicament, argued as an “international” problem, carried now all the burden of the creation of Pakistan
itself; these zones would be dubbed and attacked as “miniature Pakistans.”
Jang took Jalil’s appeal to muhajirs, to fight on behalf of Muslims in India
very seriously, and argued that it was time the muhajirs took a leading role
in organizing to protect their brothers in India. There was also a sense of
bewilderment at the unmaking of an imagined “Muslim nation” with the
realization of a Pakistani state, for, as one editorial noted, “at this time Muslims [in India] have no choice but to be patient. But we, Pakistani Muslims,
what should we do, what part should we play in this drama? The truth is
that we do not, nor does anyone else, have an answer to this question.”92
It is striking that north Indian Muslims in Karachi and Delhi saw
themselves as part of a shared landscape, albeit a shifting and uncertain
one. In this context, Jang and its readers in Karachi faced a two-pronged
struggle as the Pakistani state seemingly faltered in fulfilling its many expectations. Muhajirs found they had to fight for inclusion in a Pakistani
state that viewed Muslim refugees with ambiguity, and they struggled to
make the case for Pakistan’s responsibility toward Muslims remaining in
India. Political imagination and the realities of displacements could not
be easily reconciled, and it was by no means self-evident to most of the
displaced how or where their lives should unfold.
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Moving People, Immovable Property
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3. Refugees, Boundaries, Citizens
It’s well known that he who returns never left . . .1
I
n the previous chapters I attempted to open up the categorical closure that accompanies Partition’s indelible images, of Hindu and
Sikh refugees moving to India and Muslim refugees to Pakistan, by examining the contingent and uncertain conditions in which they moved.Yet
the power of these images in a national ordering has been such that I was
surprised when I discovered that in 1948 the tide turned, and large numbers of north Indian Muslim refugees began to return to their homes in
India. This return had enormous significance, for the first restrictions on
movement in the region came in the form of an emergency permit system instituted by the Indian government to stem this tide and led to the
introduction of citizenship provisions ahead of the constitution itself.
Any claim of “discovery” is built upon some hierarchy of knowledge
which structures silences. However, silences are produced not only by what
is said, but also by what we think is important to ask. It is at this conjunction of the “unspeakable” and the “unthinkable” that personal experience
escapes the significance of history.2 It was my interview with Rafi bhai in
Delhi that led me to investigate the permit system. In the aftermath of the
horrific violence in the city, his family of committed Congressites realized
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moving people, immovable property
80
that most of their extended kin had left for Pakistan. Thus he recounted
how in early 1948 he traveled with his paternal grandfather, his dada, and
his parents to Pakistan to look for their departed relatives:
rafi bhai: Jab Pakistan gaye 1948 men azizon ko dekhne ke liye, in men se
kon bacha kon kis hal men hai . . . phir hum log Pakistan men to permit
ka system shuru ho gaya. Is waqt tak koi system nahin tha. Phir ekdam
se ye hua ke permit ho gaya . . . to phir permit le kar aye to yani ye bahut
strange bat hai ke jo log Pakistan chale gaye the un men se koi admi ye
kahe. Har log the. Jaise Pakistan ke governor-general jo the, us waqt Ghulam Mohammad woh Aligarh ke parhe hue the. Hamare dada ke marasi
the usı zamane ke liye aur phir . . . unhon ne bhı kaha aur, aur bhı jannewalle the ke ap ab agae hai jaye nahin.Yahin rehye. Magar zindagı bhar
ek usool par committed rahe.To us akhri umar ke hisse men jo hai us ko
think karna – yani Muslim League ke khilaf the ye log aur Congress ke
sath the.To is liye un ne tasleem nahin kiya. Aur woh Hindustan agae.To
Hindustan men ye tamasha hua ke –ke jo hamarı jaedad thı woh evacuee
qarar kardı gaı. . . . Sara jo case tha woh larte rahe akele yahan par . . .
author: Kiya case?
rafi bhai: Citizenship ka ma‘mla tha.
author: Kaise?
rafi bhai: Pakistan chale gae wahan se ae hai to barhal inhon ne sabit kar
diya ke main jane se phele tak tankhwa leta raha hun.Yahan men ne
resign nahin kiya.Yahan mera lian hai aur bas main chutı par gaya tha
apne azizon se milne aur mera koi irada Pakistan men rahne ka nahin
tha. Government of India ne phir one of the gazettes of India declared
that we are citizens of India.
rafi bhai: When we went to Pakistan in 1948, to see our relatives, of them who had survived, how they were . . . then when
we were in Pakistan, then the permit system started. Until then
there was no system. There was no system. Then suddenly . . . so
we obtained a permit to return. But this was a strange thing that
those people who had gone to Pakistan, of them anyone would
say this. There were all sorts of people there. Like the governorgeneral of Pakistan. At this time it was Ghulam Mohammad. He
had studied at Aligarh. Our grandfather, dada, was his classmate.
At this time and then . . . even he said and others who had gone,
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Refugees, Boundaries, Citizens
81
“You have come now, don’t go. Stay here.” But all his life he
had one principle to which he had remained committed. So at
this, at the last stage of his life, to even think this—I mean he
was against the Muslim League, these people, and was with the
Congress. So that is why he never acknowledged them. And he
came to Hindustan. In Hindustan there was this drama that our
properties were declared evacuee . . . all that he did then was
fight, alone, the case . . .
author: What case?
rafi bhai: It was a matter of citizenship.
author: How come?
rafi bhai: Had gone to Pakistan and come back from there. Anyhow he proved it that I until I left was drawing my pay. Here I
have not resigned. Here is my life, and that I had just gone on
my vacation to visit my relatives and that I had no intention of
staying in Pakistan. The Government of India then in one of the
Gazettes declared that we are citizens of India.
According to Rafi bhai, his family had gone to Pakistan to visit relatives
in concern for their well-being, and therefore their return home should
have been unremarkable. Furthermore, in all my other interviews and
conversations with divided families no one had mentioned something
that could be called a “return movement,” and so at first I considered
their family’s experience an entirely personal one. It was to understand
how travel on a permit could lead to a court case about citizenship that
initially directed my archival research, for it seemed extraordinary that a
mere vacation could have such grave consequences.
In addition, it did not occur to me to ask why a permit system had
been established, for the regulation of movement seemed an accepted
part of statehood, and therefore a natural intermediary to a passport system. John Torpey and Radhika Mongia have shown how in Europe and
North America this technology of modern statehood came to be instituted within specific debates on nation, territory, and citizenship in the
nineteenth and early twentieth century.3 Yet I took it for granted that
in the Indian subcontinent such controls on movement came as fully
formed parts of an already established international order.
When I began to look for information about the permit system I
found a startling abundance of sources, as if the vast governmental paper
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82
trail on “returning Muslim refugees” could hardly be considered a discovery at all. We have seen how the Muslim exodus was shaped by attempts
to rehabilitate Hindu and Sikh refugees. This governmental discourse on
returning Muslim refugees was similarly also tied to planning for refugee
rehabilitation, and provided the logic for the institution of permits to
control the movement of refugees.
Rafi bhai pointed out the suddenness with which the permit system
came into place, such that many like his family were caught utterly by
surprise.4 Rafi bhai’s surprise was not unfounded. The Partition Council,
which oversaw the administrative division of British India, had left the
question of nationality laws to the two emerging states but had gone
so far as to amend British Indian passport rules “so that there should
be no restrictions on the movement of persons from one Dominion to
another.”5 Thus when the government of India unilaterally announced
on July 14, 1948, the introduction of the permit system across its western
frontier with Pakistan, and then promulgated the Influx from Pakistan
(Control) Ordinance to enforce this control regime by making entering
India without a permit a criminal and punishable act6—for people of
the subcontinent at the time this was not a natural or an inevitable consequence of Partition’s new mapping. The Pakistani government put its
own permit system into effect by October 15 and promulgated a parallel
Pakistan (Control of Entry) Ordinance 1948.7 Together these measures
formed the first set of restrictions on movement of people between the
two postcolonial states, and even though they affected movement across
the western border only, it was for many the “real” Partition:
Government of India invented the permit system and Pakistan on
its part has put it into effect, and so the real partition has taken place
now, making a distance of a few miles so difficult to cross.8
From the moment the permit system was announced by the Indian
government, right up to the time it was replaced by the passport system
in 1952, the hope was repeatedly expressed that it would be brought to
an end, and unrestricted movement within the subcontinent restored.
Newspapers in Urdu in particular, letters to the editor, articles, and statements by various Muslim leaders articulated this sentiment with fervor,
and especially during each inter-dominion conference when the subject
of permits came up for discussion. The “real partition” was an emotive
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83
issue, and as one letter to Al-Jamiat put it, “there should be no permit
system, so that after Partition our hearts are not partitioned.”9
I became aware of the disciplinary effects of the permit system on the
expression of emotions when I interviewed Rafi bhai’s mother’s youngest
sister, his khala, in Karachi. She remembered their visit to Pakistan in 1948
from the perspective of Rafi bhai’s mother. This is how she recalled her
sister’s coming to Pakistan:
naseem apa: Woh itnı bicharı majbuur thı. Because she could not leave
her husband aur father-in-law. Bahut chaha. Shuru men kehtı thı. Aur
woh khud un par be-had taras khate the. Bahut mohabat karte the. Kehte
the ke mujhe bahut taras ata hai ke pura khandan chala gaya, pura ghar
chala gaya, pura shehr chala gaya. Aur ye akeli reh gaı. Lekin woh kehtı
thı ke main in logon ko kaise chhor sakti hun. Main ne bataya woh ae
the lekin yahan ke mahol wagera dekh kar woh wapas chale gae . . . ati
thı woh yahan par, jitnı dafa atı thı to har dafa kehtı thı ke sab ko dekh
kar itna achha lagta hai. Dil chahta hai ke yahin ajauun. Lekin kehne
lagı phir sochtı hun ke nahin apna ghar wahı theek hai. . . .
[Later in the interview]
Hanh, woh abhi gae the Pakistan lekin dubara chale gae. Kyon ke un
logon ne us waqt ye decide kar liya. Halanke un ka nuqsan hua us men.
Nuqsan uthaya un ne.
naseem apa: The poor thing was so constrained. Because she
could not leave her husband and father-in-law. She really wanted
to [stay in Pakistan]. In the beginning she used to say [this]. And
he would himself feel really sorry for her. He really loved her. He
used to say that he felt really pity for her that the whole family
had gone. The entire house had gone. The entire city had gone.
And she has been left entirely alone. But she would say, “How
can I leave these people?” I told you, they had come here but
looking at the conditions etc. here they went back. That was
from the beginning. The condition of the people. She used to
come and every time she came she would say how nice it was to
see everybody. My heart wishes that I just stay here. But then she
said, then I think, no, my home there is all right.
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84
[Later in the interview]
naseem apa: Yes. They had come to Pakistan, but they went back
again. Because those people at the time decided that. Although
they suffered a loss because of that. They had to bear the loss.
Narrated from the perspective of Rafi bhai’s mother, the meaning of
the “visit” was transformed as it became laden with the loss of family
and a conflicted desire for reunion with them. Rafi bhai had earlier explained to me that his mother’s special place in their family was due to
the fact that his dada had lost his wife while still in his youth, but had not
remarried. As a result she was the wife of his only son, and as the only
“woman of the house” was deeply loved and respected. The departure of
her brother and sisters, their entire kin network, due to Partition’s displacements was a particularly painful loss for her, but her pain was shared
by those who loved her.
However, for Rafi bhai any suggestion that the journey to Pakistan was
entwined with longing for the order of the family not to be separated was
rendered unspeakable. The permit system restricted the flow of “returning Muslims” by declaring all those who had gone to Pakistan as having
migrated, and it was the intention to migrate and not the desire to return
that came to determine Indian citizenship for Muslims.
In my second interview with Rafi bhai I specifically asked him to tell
me more about their visit to Pakistan and the court case. He was reluctant
to discuss it further, and tried to answer my question briefly, as if it had
not been of particular significance:
rafi bhai: Dada se hum ne sirf ye suna ke case ban gaya tha ke ap kaise
agae hai, kiya hai, to phir jate rahe court. Ye mujhe yad hai ke inhon
ne yahan [workplace] men jo resgister tha signature karte the, le gae
dikhane ke liye.Ye mujhe yad hai kehte the ke Zakir saheb ne mujh se
ye kaha ke main is ma‘mle men ap ki madad nahin kar sakta. Is ka ye
un ka reaction tha ke main ap se kahonga bhı nahin. Aur ye hukumat
agar mujhe tasleem kartı hai as a shehrı, main ne jo kuch bhı kiya yahan par – tasleem kartı hai warna main aur duniya ke dusre mulk hai
main wahan ja kar reh longa. Magar main ap se nahin puchhonga ke
shehriyat ke liye. Main apna right mang raha hun main ye to . . . main
apne azizon ko dekhne gaya hun, ye mera haq hai ke main apne azizon
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ko dekhne ja‘on. Kon zinda hai kon nahin. Itna bara inqilab aya hai.
Main ap se nahin kahonga. Aur ye hı hua ke kagazat pesh kiye gaye
honge aur it was proved.
rafi bhai: From our grandfather we only heard that there was a
case, that how have you come, what is this, so then he used to
go to the court. I remember that he here at [his workplace]
had a register where he used to sign. He took that to show.
This I remember that he said that Zakir saheb [Zakir Husain]
had said that in this matter he would not help. His reaction was
that I will not even ask you. And this government, if it does not
acknowledge me as a citizen, after all that I have done here, acknowledges me, or else in this world there are many countries,
and I can go there and live. But I will not ask you for citizenship. I am asking for my right, I am not . . . I went to see my
relatives and this is my right to go and see my relatives. Who is
alive and who is not. Such a big revolution/upheaval has taken
place. I will not ask you. And this is what happened. He must
have presented his papers and it was proved.
Rafi bhai was careful to maintain that their journey to Pakistan was
merely a visit of rightful familial concern, and aligned all belonging and
affect within the order of the state, to silence that of the family.
This chapter tracks the bureaucratic discourse on “Muslim refugees”
in both India and Pakistan, to examine how technology regulating the
movement of people was first rationalized and then uniquely designed to
specifically control the movement of “Muslims” and “fix” their belonging. It simultaneously reveals the familial worlds of emotive ties, shorn
open for bureaucratic discipline and legal adjudication, to foreground the
highly contested and gendered character of this attempt at making and
unmaking citizens of two nations.
returning muslim refugees
It is significant that most of the returning Muslim refugees were coming from Karachi, Pakistan’s new capital, and its province Sind, where,
as I discussed in the previous chapter, a severe housing crisis in what
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had been relatively small urban centers, was coupled with the provincial government’s ambiguous reception toward arriving Muslim refugees.
Tensions in Karachi reached a peak when the Sind government was seen
as particularly targeting muhajirs in response to riots in the city on January
6, 1948, leading a Jang editorial to state that “the Premier of Sind . . . does
not like to see Hindustan’s Muslim muhajirs in Sind.”10
Perhaps even more important for turning the tide was Mahatma Gandhi’s fast on January 12 to restore peace to Delhi, and bring security to its
Muslim population. It had a dramatic effect on Muslim morale and aided
attempts to reduce communal tensions in the city.11 A few weeks later,
his shocking murder on January 30 at the hands of Nathu Ram Godse
further served to discredit Hindu extremist groups, and it has been suggested that this also increased the confidence of the north Indian Muslim
population.12 As the cartoon in Jang suggests (figure 3.1), there was even
a feeling that conditions in Delhi had changed such that Muslims would
be welcomed back. Thus it is possible to conjecture that in the following
month, as letters and news were exchanged between Muslims in Karachi
and Delhi, between friends and family, many who had never intended to
stay permanently in Pakistan or were disappointed decided to return to
their homes.
In official Indian discourse, however, it was their numbers that became
particularly important. By mid-March 1948, the Indian High Commission in Pakistan had stated that every day a thousand Muslim refugees
were returning to their homes in India. By mid-May, the United Kingdom High Commission in Delhi first quoted local newspapers as saying
that 200,000 to 300,000 Muslims had returned, while in a later report
to the Commonwealth Relations Office it suggested that 100,000 to
250,000 Muslims had returned, with 40,000 having returned to Delhi
alone. In yet another report it quoted local news that 2,000 Muslims were
returning every day.13
While it is uncertain how these numbers were arrived at, in the absence of any precise mechanisms for counting, the numbers became important enough that from April 3, 1948, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Delhi Police began quantifying Muslim arrivals
and departures in the city in its weekly reports.
Table 3.1 is my tabulation of figures from these reports. According to
these statistics, the total number of Muslims arriving in Delhi up to the end
of May is 16,350, and if the number leaving (almost 4,450, but otherwise
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87
figure 3.1 “A visit to Chandni Chowk,” Jang, January 15, 1948. The vendors are
shouting “Kebabs, hot kebabs!”The man with the bottle is selling alcohol.Two men at
the center are speaking to each other, and one of them says, “Brother, we were better
off with Muslims than with these Sikhs.”
unremarked) is subtracted, then an increase in the Muslim population of
the city amounted to only 11,900—nowhere near the suggested 40,000
people. In drawing attention to the CID enumerations, my purpose is
not to invest a truth in them, but rather to argue that these numbers were
important not for their precision. They accumulated to give shape and
authority to a “problem” that came to be described in local government
reports as “the indiscriminate flux of Muslim refugees,” “the steady influx
of Muslim repatriates,” “the inordinate influx of Muslims,” or simply “the
Muslim influx.” The reports conjured an invasive and continuous flow of
people that would later provide justification for the drafting of the Influx
from Pakistan (Control) Ordinance.14
This counting and classification of a Muslim influx began to acquire
threatening significance in the bureaucratic record as the return of Muslim refugees folded into a rehabilitation discourse centered on the housing of Hindu and Sikh refugees. During the September 1947 violence
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moving people, immovable property
table 3.1 CID Enumeration of Muslim Movements
CID Report for the week ending
March 27, 1948
April 3
April 10
April 17
May 1
May 8
May 15
May 22
May 29
June 5
June 19
July10
July 17
July 24
July 31
August 7
August 14
August 21
August 28
Number of Muslims
arriving in Delhi
2500 (mostly Meos)
2000
2000
2300
2400
2400
1100
650
1000
800
750
1350
1960
200
120
20
235
250
210
Number of Muslims
departing Delhi
1100
630
400
500
500
400
470
450
600
375
1700
750
570
300
450
400
410
500
These figures have been extracted from the Diary of Superintendent of Police, CID Delhi,
March 27,1948, DSA, CC 60/47-C, p. 101, and Weekly Reports, CID Delhi, DSA, 68/47-C.
in Delhi, most Muslim homes had come to be occupied by Hindu and
Sikh refugees displaced from the Punjab. Thus the CID enumeration of
Muslim movement was reported alongside the “indignation” of Hindu
and Sikh refugees who had “spent large sums of money to repair Muslim houses” that they had occupied, and now feared “ejectment . . . from
vacant Muslim houses without [anyone] providing for them elsewhere.”
This fear was stated as so great that “[t]he non-Muslim refugees fe[lt] that
it would have been better for them to embrace Islam in Pakistan rather
than suffer ignominy in India.” Delhi’s police inspector-general reported
that the hostility of the refugees meant that “if Muslims are put back in
their houses in these areas they will be safe only as long as police protection is there. As soon as the police picket is withdrawn there is bound to
be an attack on the Muslims by the non-Muslim refugees of the locality.” The inspector-general’s report further suggested that any attempts by
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89
the government to “support” Muslims would be interpreted by Hindus
and Sikhs as being directed against them. Observers of a police-enforced
clearing of a mosque were quoted as saying that “the time was fast approaching when all the locks put on Muslim houses and mosques would
be broken open and occupied by Hindus and Sikhs and at that time no
Muslim would be allowed to occupy any house in Delhi.”15
These reports adopted a point of view which not only privileged Hindu and Sikh refugee fears, described repeatedly as the “public mind,”16 but
also positioned Hindu and Sikh interests entirely in opposition to those
of Muslims as an undifferentiated category (including Muslims who had
remained in Delhi through the violence, as well as those who were now
returning). By focusing on the ferocity of anti-Muslim sentiment and
“vacant Muslim houses,” Muslims were not only left categorically outside
the “public,” but the violence that had forced them to leave their homes
was completely written out.
This is not to say that the Hindu and Sikh refugees were not anxious,
or that they did not harbor resentment towards Muslims in general; many
of the Hindus and Sikhs had recently survived terrible violence inflicted
by other Muslims in the Punjab. But Hindu and Sikh anger was also directed against government officials who they felt were not doing enough
to alleviate their plight.17 However, in the official record, Muslims, instead
of being included in government plans for “refugee rehabilitation,” became the obstacle to them.
Housing refugees as part of a rehabilitation program served a double
function: it incorporated refugees into the new nation and defined the
nation’s spatial order. In addition to houses that were already occupied,
“empty houses” in Muslim zones became another space of contention. “Muslim zones” had been set up in Delhi during the violence of
September 1947 to provide “safe areas” for Muslims to move into from
camps and other parts of the city. In Deputy Commissioner Randhawa’s
reports these Muslim zones were from the start perceived as a central
impediment to the rehabilitation of Hindu and Sikh refugees since they
could not be housed there. The return of Muslim refugees, possibly to
these very “empty houses” in declared Muslim zones, further threatened
the rehabilitation of Hindu and Sikh refugees. Randhawa began to argue
vehemently that the “discontent among the refugee population” was because “refugees are afraid that they will be deprived of the houses which
have been already occupied by them and the prospects of their getting
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empty houses will fade out for good.” He insisted that these “empty
houses” in Muslim zones were such “a bone of contention” that only
if “these empty houses are occupied people’s attention will be diverted
towards the construction of new houses.”18 Eliminating “Muslim zones”
thus became necessary, he argued, for undertaking any further planning
for rehabilitation.
Among these official reports, there is one report from Randhawa that
is particularly noteworthy both for its content as well as its margins. On
June 1, 1948, Randhawa wrote:
There are rumors that some trouble will take place in the last week
of June . . . the return of Muslims in large numbers from Pakistan
and the occupation of houses which have been lying vacant seems
to be the major cause of these rumors. The refugees were living
in the hope that they will be able to get these houses, but with
the return of Muslims, these hopes are vanishing. Consequently
they want to create panic among Muslims by spreading rumors
that some trouble will take place. Creation of so-called Muslim zones
which are nothing but miniature Pakistans is also resented. Common
criticism is that if we are building a secular state then why this compartmentalization and zoning of citizens. (emphasis added)19
In the margins of the page, Chief Commissioner Sahibzada Khurshid
Ahmed, Randhawa’s superior, penciled in his own comments alongside
the typed script of his deputy:
Forward this copy with [illegible] that I generally agree with Muslim influx. D.C. [deputy commissioner] Housing problem has to be
tackled with vigor and imagination. Much time has been wasted
in pursuing stereotyped plans. Assigned Muslim zones I hope when
D.C. says they are nothing but miniature Pakistans he is not explaining
his own views but the views held by unbalanced refugees . . . [signed, 2/6]
(emphasis added)
Sahibzada Khurshid was one of the few senior Muslim officials in the
Indian Civil Service (ICS) who opted to work for India, and remained
the chief commissioner of Delhi through the post-Partition violence. His
marginal voice can perhaps be understood from two different perspec-
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91
tives. In his autobiography, Maulana Azad criticized Khurshid as a weak
and ineffectual officer who was afraid to show favor to Muslims and
so allowed Randhawa to control affairs and treat Muslims unfairly in
the riots.20 On the other hand, I interviewed Khurshid’s niece, Begum
Kadiruddin, in Karachi. She was given refuge in Khurshid’s home during
the September violence even though she was married to the president of
Delhi’s Muslim League chapter. According to her recollections, her chacha
was a deeply frustrated man in those days because he felt that his deputy
was bypassing him in the Delhi administration and corresponding with
and receiving orders directly from Khurshid’s superiors. His frustration,
she argued, only grew when, at the time of the imposition of the permit
system, he was transferred from his position as chief commissioner of
Delhi to a less significant position as head of an ICS training facility.21
Khurshid’s pencil notes can be read as an erasable, shadowy critique
of Randhawa’s sustained argument against the continuation of “Muslim
zones.” Khurshid vaguely suggests that the obstinate focus on “empty
houses” for purposes of rehabilitation is a “stereotyped plan.” He seems
generally concerned by the labeling of “Muslim zones” into “miniature
Pakistans,” but his stated concern is his deputy’s point of view. He only
implies that the labeling is an “unbalanced” view, by referring to the view
of “unbalanced refugees,” and appeals to the virtues of a rational and neutral state that stands outside of society’s prejudices. Khurshid’s inability
to directly challenge the making of a bureaucratic discourse which was
repeatedly constructing Muslims as a problem of governance reflects not
just his peripheral position as a Muslim official in the Indian state, but also
the power of this bureaucratic discourse itself.
The sinister implications of calling a collection of Muslim homes “miniature
Pakistans” become evident when Randhawa suggests that Muslim return was
not just a problem for rehabilitation, but also “a serious menace to law and order.”22 Here he not only means the possibility of renewed communal conflict,
but also “fifth columnist” activity23:
My attention has been drawn to the steady influx of Muslim repatriates in Delhi who are returning from West Pakistan in steadily increasing numbers. Out of these there are some who are returning from the
land of their dreams genuinely disappointed and may be expected to
settle down as loyal citizens. However, there are some among them
who are returning without their families and are potential saboteurs
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92
and fifth columnists. I have been told by a Muslim friend that some
of them are actually saying that the Pakistan Army will celebrate next
Idd in the Jama Masjid of Delhi. Some check is necessary on the activities of such persons.
My suggestion is that all Muslims who are returning from West
Pakistan should be placed in a Quarantine Camp for a specified
period before they are allowed to mingle with the population of
Delhi. When in camp enquiries be made about their antecedents
and character and proposed place of stay and address in Delhi be
also noted. This will enable the police to keep a check on their
activities. Apart from reasons of security, this will also enable us to
know the exact number of persons who are returning, their professions and also whether they can be usefully re-absorbed in the
urban economy of Delhi.24
A Jang cartoon from Karachi actually depicts a Muslim refugee from
Delhi tearfully longing to celebrate the festival of Eid at Delhi’s Jama Masjid (see figure 3.2). In Randhawa’s report this very sentiment is rendered
suspect, and transformed into an aggressive and invasive intent. Randhawa’s perception of a threat draws authenticity from an informant who is a
“Muslim friend,” and this allows him to place his analysis and policy proposal of Quarantine Camps within the neutral frame of a state concerned
for the well being of an abstract nation, rather than a partisan view.
While some returning Muslim refugees could be made into “loyal
citizens,” others were “potential saboteurs and fifth columnists” who
needed to be quarantined and policed. “Mini-Pakistans” was semantically charged with the danger of an invading Pakistan Army, and this notion was voiced in subsequent police and deputy commissioner reports
which reiterated that “the influx of a large number of Muslims to this
place is due to a deep conspiracy aimed at the establishment of a Muslim
rule at this place.”25 The reports also argued that Muslims were returning
because they wanted to create communal disturbances in order to prejudice the United Nations Organization (UNO) commission that was to
arrive in India to deliberate on claims to Kashmir made by both India
and Pakistan.26 One CID report argued that in addition to influencing
the UNO commission, returning Muslims were part of a conspiracy of
revenge in which occupied Muslim houses were once again essentially
at stake:
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figure 3.2 “Eid in Delhi vs. Eid in Pakistan,” Jang, August 8, 1948.The couplet above
the image translates as “Autumn makes me weep with the memory of spring’s harvest / How can I enjoy the happiness of Eid for I am in mourning.”
It is understood that some Muslims who had come from Rawalpindi and other places and who had been noticed moving about
in the Sabzimandi area clad in Hindu fashion had told the refugees from Rawalpindi and Wazirabad, etc., that they had come to
Delhi to create distrubances and avenge the wrongs done to the
Muslims of Delhi. According to the Muslim goondas [thugs], the
Sabzimandi area was formerly predominated over by Muslims but
now all their houses had been occupied by Hindus and Sikhs and
they would see that all the Muslim houses were evicted of the
non-Muslims. . . . Thus, there appears to be a regular conspiracy of
the Muslims with the tacit support of the Pakistan Government to
create communal flareup in India to prejudice the world opinion
against the Indian Union.27
With Muslims described as belligerent agents of the Pakistani state, their
claims to homes in the city were made transgressive and illegitimate. Thus
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moving people, immovable property
by the time the permit system was introduced, it was greeted with approval
by the administrative apparatus, including Delhi’s new chief commissioner,
Shankar Prasad, who noted that “it reduces the growing menace of enemy
espionage” and “the pressure on population caused by one-way traffic.”28
“One-way traffic” became the phrase that summarized the rationale for
imposition of the permit system. It was based on the argument that both
Hindu and Muslim refugees were flowing from Pakistan to India, while
there was no such flow of refugees from India to Pakistan. It was to stem this
“one-way traffic” that the permit system was required. As we have seen in
the previous chapter, the Indian state had embraced the flow of Hindu refugees from Pakistan to India, and therefore it was largely the flow of Muslim
refugees that was considered a problem of both economics and loyalty.
The impact of the bureaucratic discourse on national politics is striking. When the “open-door policy for these refugees coming from Pakistan to India” was first discussed in the Constituent Assembly on March
22, 1948, the fear was expressed that they were returning to reclaim their
homes with all its consequences for Hindu and Sikh refugees. However,
Jawaharlal Nehru reminded the Assembly “of certain pledges that we
have given in regard to this matter to Mahatma Gandhi just before his
death” and insisted that regardless of the Pakistan government’s actions
toward minorities, the Indian government would abide by Gandhi’s wish
to welcome and retain India’s Muslim population.29
However, in the ensuing months, as the bureaucratic discourse gathered force, the tenor of political debate in the Assembly changed. After the imposition of the permit system, a question was raised in the
Constituent Assembly on August 10 as to whether the permit restrictions
“violate[d] any of the conditions on the basis of which Mahatma Gandhi
broke his fast.” Sardar Patel replied that “[c]onditions in Delhi have been
normal and peaceful for the last several months and the government presumes that all those who had left Delhi on account of general insecurity
prevailing last year in the month of September have already returned.The
residue must be taken to be those who left Delhi to settle permanently
in Pakistan. Therefore the question of violation of Gandhi’s fast does not
arise.” Patel’s statement marked an important political shift which made
the permit system a legitimate set of restrictions on Muslim return. A line
was drawn: Muslim refugees remaining in Pakistan were declared to be
emigrants who could no longer claim a right of belonging in India.
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noah’s ark
The large-scale departure of Muslim refugees from Karachi and Sind did
raise alarms in Pakistan. The Jang, a muhajir newspaper, expressed outrage
at this return movement. On the one hand, it addressed itself to muhajirs
to tie them to the Pakistan idea itself. A cartoon, for instance, portrayed
them as the rightful pallbearers of Pakistan, symbolized by the mosque,
and poignantly asked who would be left to build Pakistan if all the muhajirs left Pakistan for Hindustan. (See figure 3.3.)
On the other hand, letters and articles criticized the Pakistani government for failing to provide adequate refuge to the very people who had
struggled for it:
figure 3.3 “Alas! this selfish world!” Jang, April 9, 1948. Note at the bottom translates
as: “If all the muhajirs leave then only government officers will be left to build this
country.”
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From Hyderabad, Sind, and Karachi those going back to Hindustan
are a source of real sadness . . . approximately 500 to a thousand are
going back every day from Sind. . . . Is this why we made such sacrifices for making a great Islamic country?30
From the Indian Union Muslims came to Pakistan for they had
conviction that they would find refuge in Pakistan. . . . But what
a sad state of affairs that these very people who came running to
Pakistan are today upset with Pakistan, and disappointed they are
returning to Hindustan. First we had heard that from Karachi and
Sind every day 300 Muslims were returning to Delhi and the Indian
Union, but now their number has tripled. Now Hind’s deputy high
commissioner, Mr. Naganathan, has said that every day 1000 muhajirs are returning to the Indian Union. Shame! Shame! O Pakistan
you could not give your own brothers refuge. . . .31
This image of disheartened and disappointed Muslim refugees returning to their homes added bite to ongoing criticisms of the Pakistani
government’s relief and rehabilitation efforts (see figures 3.4 and 3.5).The
moral pressure this stirred was substantial and led to the announcement
of new rehabilitation schemes for Karachi and Sind.32
When the Resolution for the Rehabilitation of Refugees was discussed in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on May 20, 1948, the
return of Muslim refugees became a visibly emotional issue. The rehabilitation of refugees was assumed to be central to their incorporation
in the new nation, and the failure of such rehabilitation efforts was believed to have led to refugee departures. The former Sind premier, M.A.
Khuhro (who had been in office when the January 6 riot had taken
place), in particular received criticism for spreading anti-refugee feeling.
This highlighted existing political tensions between the Sindhi politicians and muhajir leaders. Some members of the Assembly lamented the
plight of Muslim refugees who “after coming over here . . . feel that they
can neither live here or go back.” One member asked why conditions
in Pakistan were so bad that people were returning “to the places from
where they had been turned out.”
Ghazanfar Ali Khan, the minister for refugees and rehabilitation, responded to these criticisms, on this occasion and when the matter was
raised again on May 25 and 26. His statements are particularly significant
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figure 3.4 “Once someone leaves this world, help comes too late,” Jang, April 24,
1948. A panaghir craftsman is saying “Pakistan Zindabad!” The snail is carrying a sign
which says “Good news! The Rehabilitation Ministry has made a committee for rehabilitation of panaghir craftsmen.”
figure 3.5 “Indian Death/Pakistani Death,” Jang, April 2, 1948. The family is labeled
“muhajir” and the man says, “If one has to die then what Pakistan, what Hindustan!”
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98
because they articulate the Pakistani state’s ambiguity toward Muslim
refugees from outside divided Punjab. He largely blamed the Indian government for representing the Muslim refugees’ return to India as being
caused by their ill treatment in Pakistan. His assessment was that those
who were returning included primarily the Meos, about whom an intergovernmental agreement had been reached, and others who were returning to their families and relatives in India. These Muslims had sought refuge in Pakistan but had never intended to make Pakistan their home.33
Furthermore, he insisted that contrary to Nehru’s telegrams about the
“one-way traffic” of people between India and Pakistan, thousands of
Muslims from India were continuing to come to Pakistan by sea, and thus
the “traffic” was not one-way at all. For Khan, this continuing movement
of Muslims from India to Pakistan was the real source of the problem.
Khan argued that the Indian government was not doing enough “to retain those Muslims who had declared their allegiance to India” and that
the Indian government “should not allow them to come here.” As far as
the Pakistani government was concerned, those Muslims who lived in India should be looked after by the Indian state.Yet the Pakistan movement
had been claimed on behalf of all Muslims of the subcontinent, and so he
added with rhetorical bluster:
. . . we have no right to close the doors of Pakistan on the refugees
who have migrated from India to Pakistan . . . [I]t will be our duty
to drag to the roof every flood-stricken person, but so many should
not be taken on the roof that it should collapse and all be lost in the
floods . . . Pakistan is not only his home, but is the home of all the
Musalmans of the world.34
We have already seen Liaqat Ali Khan straddle these two competing
positions when faced with the initial Muslim exodus from Delhi, and
here Ghazanfar Ali Khan follows the same coupling of arguments—
Muslims in India should not come to Pakistan, even though Pakistan
was at the same time their refuge and homeland and could not close
its doors on them. But these two positions were not easy to reconcile
politically in the face of continuing Muslim displacement from India.
The Indian government’s introduction of the permit system, however,
offered the Pakistani government a potential bureaucratic solution to its
political problem.
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Initially the Pakistani government opposed the Indian permit system
and stated that “no regulation of traffic in this way was necessary.”35 At the
inter-dominion conference in Lahore on July 22, 1948, Pakistan’s demand
to end the permit system was discussed.The Indian government responded with a proposal for a governmentally controlled “two-way traffic” in
which refugees could return to their original homes if they wanted to.
One could argue that this was an opportunity of sorts to reverse Partition’s displacements, since much of the communal violence that had
sparked it had subsided and movements like the Phir Basao Conference
suggested the desire of some to return home. But the official record has
left only this trace, in which Liaqat Ali Khan declared it “out of the question.”36 Instead, the Pakistani government went so far as to threaten India
that if it did not lift its permit restrictions, then it would impose retaliatory restrictions on movement not only in the west, but also in East
Pakistan, where Hindu business interests across divided Bengal would be
particularly affected.37
However, a turning point came in the Pakistani state’s position on
permits when the central government began discussions with the provincial governments on the implementation of such a retaliatory permit
system. The premiers of West Punjab and North West Frontier Province
(NWFP) argued that the permit system should be conceived of not just
as a retaliatory gesture, but rather as a necessity for purposes of “security.”38 According to the West Punjab premier, there were many Muslims,
some Anglo-Indians, and Hindus who were constantly coming into West
Punjab from East Punjab and vice versa for espionage, “acting as enemy
agents.” He cited the case of a Muslim in West Punjab who was found
writing a letter to a friend in East Punjab suggesting that the proper
time to bomb Lahore was when a large congregation had gathered for
Eid prayers at the Badshahi mosque. Given the threat posed by moving
people—Muslims and non-Muslims alike—they emphasized the advantages of the permit system for the surveillance of “visitors” and policing
of “suspicious characters.”
The report of this meeting was influential in determining the Pakistani
Cabinet’s decision on September 4, 1948, to adopt a permit system parallel
to India’s; inter-dominion discussions to end the system were abandoned.39
It was to be introduced immediately for travel from India to West Pakistan,
and, after “administrative arrangements,” from India to East Pakistan. In a
discussion centered around achieving “full security,” the permit system was
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deemed as “a real check against the entry of undesirable elements (Muslim
or non-Muslim) into Pakistan” and it was recommended that “an officer
who has experience of intelligence work” be posted to the High Commission in Delhi. Thus when the Pakistan (Control of Entry) Ordinance
of 1948 was drafted, it was “prepared primarily as an internal security measure” in which Muslims were as suspect as non-Muslims.40
However, there was resistance from at least two fronts within the Pakistani government to the imposition of the permit system, and the defense
of that system reveals its full intended purposes. The East Bengal government objected to the extension of the permit system to its borders, even
though it had agreed to it during the first round of provincial discussions.
Its premier argued that the initial agreement had been acceded to primarily to threaten India into withdrawing her permit system, but its actual
imposition was considered opposed to “our people’s needs.”41
The inconvenience lay in the particular geography of divided Bengal.
The premier argued that people particularly from upcountry would have
to come down to Dacca to obtain a permit, and from certain parts of the
country, such as Jessore and Khulna, a person had to pass through Indian
territory in order to get to Dacca itself. On the other hand, most people
who crossed from the West to the East primarily came from Calcutta and
would not face the same amount of difficulty. The permit system would
be ineffective as a security mechanism, for any strict control of movement of people would in effect isolate a section of “nationals” as well as
“national territory” itself.42
The Cabinet discussed East Bengal’s opposition, and particularly
debated the “security” effectiveness of the permit system. Some felt it
would “enable better control” of “undesirable characters from India”
while others argued that “most of the troublemakers in East Bengal
belonged to that place” itself and would not be circumscribed by a
permit system. Thus “security” was not a sufficient reason for introducing the permits. This ambivalence of the central government toward
Bengal, and its “troublemakers” within, is perhaps indicative of the
rift between East and West Pakistan that was to follow later. However,
for the time being, an economic rationale overrode “security” in the
decision to not apply the permit system across the eastern frontier. The
Cabinet agreed that thousands of persons living in East Bengal daily
crossed over to the West to make their livelihood, and many conducted
business both in Calcutta and in East Bengal. Restricting their activi-
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ties to one dominion could result in economic hardship and the loss of
business to East Bengal.
The government of East Bengal was not alone in questioning the necessity of a permit system. Soon after the permit system was introduced in
West Pakistan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, required to undertake the
administration of the permit system in India, began to oppose it as well.
The minister of interior wrote to Liaqat Ali Khan about the growing rift
between the two ministries over the permit system.43 Foreign Affairs also
believed that the permit system was an ineffective security mechanism
given “the extensive land frontiers and the long seacoast of Western Pakistan, which cannot be sealed up, and because the spies and saboteurs have
their own specialized methods to gain entry.” Foreign Affairs essentially
argued that it was impossible for the state to assert complete territorial
vigilance, or assert total corporal control.
Muslim refugees were Foreign Affairs’ second reason for opposing permits. Although unstated elsewhere in these declassified documents on
the permit system, Foreign Affairs believed that a function of the permit
system was to keep Muslim refugees out of Pakistan. It argued that rather
than the permit system, “other methods of keeping out refugees such as
control of the issue of lower-class tickets can be adopted and they are simpler and less objectionable methods.” The suggestion of controlling the
sale of lower-class tickets for trains and ships is evidence that keeping out
poor Muslim refugees, in particular, those who would require rehabilitation, was one of the central purposes of the permit system for Pakistan.
The response of the Ministry of Interior to these charges is equally
revealing. It defended the permit system primarily on the grounds that
keeping Muslim refugees out of Pakistan was imperative to its economy:
. . . it is considered that the permit system must be tightened up and
enforced strictly as it is eventually bound up with the stability of
Pakistan’s economy. Pakistan’s resources are already overstrained and
the government cannot for some time to come afford to take on
refugees in any large numbers without grave risk to the country’s economy. Karachi’s problem has particularly become difficult on account
of its ever increasing population. Unless immigration is appreciably
cut down, the town may soon be threatened with a breakdown of
its essential services and an impossible task of refugee rehabilitation.
(emphasis added)44
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moving people, immovable property
The Ministry of Interior argued that the permit system was the most
effective means to serve this imperative, and that “[n]one of the alternative methods suggested by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for keeping
out refugees could be even half as useful or feasible as the permit system
with all its limitations was.” Proof of the permit system’s effectiveness lay
in the case of the princely state of Hyderabad, in central India, which
had a significant Muslim population. The nawab of the princely state
had resisted accession to the Indian state, but it was taken over by force
by the Indian Army in September 1948. The ministry prided itself on
“the permit system [which] was introduced just in time to save Pakistan from what might have been a deluge from the Hyderabad State.”
It warned that if the permit system was removed then Pakistan may be
faced “with a delicate security problem and a more difficult refugee
problem entailing far more serious expenditure than any permit system
could involve.”45
This argument between ministries centered on the best technique for
restricting numbers of Muslim refugees, but took the economic threat
posed by refugees as a given. The calculation that the government could
not “afford” more refugees had such rational power that it legitimated the
exclusion of Muslim refugees from India. On the one hand, the Indian
government drew upon a similar rationality to institute the permit system
to control the movement of Muslim refugees from Pakistan back to India,
and on the other hand, this provided the Pakistani government with a
technological solution outside political debate to control the movement
of Muslims from India into Pakistan.
permits qua citizenship
In a letter to Nehru, Dr. Rajendra Prasad expressed alarm at newspaper
reports of crowds of Muslims applying for permits to return to India, and
calculated that at the rate of 350 permits a day, about 30,000 or 40,000
Muslims could potentially be returning every month. They would demand to “be treated on his return to India as a national of India and in
the same way as any other national.”46 Prasad’s anxiety reflects the relative inability of the permit system to stem the tide of returning Muslim
refugees in its initial phase and anticipates a central question raised by its
introduction: who could become Indian citizens?
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When the permit system was first introduced, the Indian constitution
was still in the making and citizenship laws had not yet been drafted. But
as people, like Ghulam Ali, continued to cross the border with or without
permits, an array of permit court cases necessitated the introduction of
legal citizenship provisions in advance of the constitution itself. The violations of permit regulations thus became the first site for contesting and
giving shape to the unresolved questions of citizenship in a partitioned
subcontinent.
However, to understand these legal contestations in the making of
citizens, the historical conditions and the technological intervention of
permits need to be foregrounded. Permits were introduced by the Indian state as an emergency measure, announced and then brought into
effect within five days. The permit system thus cut across both a time of
uncertainty and a range of disordered familial formations. Even in the
midst of violence in Delhi and a large-scale exodus, some male members
of families had stayed behind in an attempt to protect homes or businesses, or retain jobs. In other cases, young men in the family had gone to
Pakistan in search of business opportunities or employment, leaving behind their wives, children, elderly parents, brothers, and sisters at “home.”
Many Muslims who had “opted” to work in the new Pakistan government continued to maintain their homes and families in India. In other
cases, sections of extended families had gone to Pakistan, while others
had remained in India. A couplet by the poet Rais Amrohi, in the Jang
newspaper, captures one of the many kinds of post-Partition families the
permit system intersected and divided.
Begum hai Hind men, to mian Sindh men muqeem
Do no ko hai faraq ka shakwa naseeb se
Kiya qeher hai keh in ki mullaqat ke liye
Permit hai shart—Woh kaise mille ga raqıb se.47
Wife in Hindustan, husband in Sindh
Both have complaints against fate’s partition
What severe punishment that in order to meet
Permit they need—how will it be obtained from the gatekeeper
The numerous letters to the editor in Jang in Karachi, and Al-Jamiat in
Delhi, record the confusion and plight that divided families-in-the-making
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experienced as simple travel between loved ones began to be interpolated
by an array of official paperwork and state officials.48 It forced decisions
about where and how a family was going to live. One CID report noted
that after the permit system, “local Muslims are thinking of either shifting
permanently to Pakistan or of making immediate arrangements for the
repatriation of their families now staying in Pakistan.”49
While permits as a technology for regulation of movement had precedence in both colonial metropoles and colonies, the form in which they
were implemented to control the flow of Partition’s refugees is perhaps
unique. When it came into effect the Indian High Commission in Pakistan began to issue five different kinds of permits. There were permits
1) for temporary visits,
2) for permanent return to India (for Muslims wishing to return
permanently to India),
3) for repeated journeys (for businessmen and officials),
4) for transit travel (for traveling across the two halves of Pakistan),
and
5) for permanent resettlement (for Hindus who wanted to migrate
permanently).50
The difference between the “permit for permanent return to India”
and the “permit for permanent resettlement” reflected the different treatment by the Indian state of Muslim refugees on the one hand and of
Hindu and Sikh refugees on the other. Those in the latter category who
wanted to move from Pakistan to India could apply for “permanent resettlement” and were entitled to government’s rehabilitation programs,
as well as ultimately citizenship in the nation-state. But Muslim refugees
who wanted to return to their homes in India had to apply for “permanent return,” and this was made exceedingly difficult through bureaucratic process, and entailed receiving permission from the provincial government where the person wanted to return. Thus most Muslims obtained
temporary permits to travel back to their homes in India. Between July 19
and August 5, 1948, the Indian High Commission in Karachi reportedly
issued 300 temporary permits daily to Muslim refugees.51
One man from Sahranpur, UP, explained in his letter to Al-Jamiat the
near impossibility of getting a permanent permit for Muslim return, and
the difficulties of even getting a temporary one:
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When the permit system between India and Pakistan was introduced it created great difficulties and those who have always lived
here and even during the violence of 1947 did not leave, they coincidentally went to visit friends and relatives, and suddenly the
permit system came in. Many were such that they could not afford
airfare and after the announcement there was not even enough
time to come by rail. And those who could afford the plane could
not come because they couldn’t book the seat in time. And there
are many among them who could not come temporarily because
they didn’t have a file for coming temporarily and a permanent
permit cannot be obtained. Therefore it is important that the government offer a permanent permit or, even better, end this permit
system altogether.52
Thus although a permit for permanent return had an official reality
and function to prevent large-scale return of Muslim refugees, in practice
people who wanted to return home either applied for both a permanent
permit and a temporary one, or simply returned home on a temporary
permit and once at home discarded the permit paper. On application
forms for temporary permits, many even wrote in earnest that the “purpose of their visit” was “Returning Home.”53
A story in Jang on a police raid on a travel agency in Bombay is quite
revealing of the ways in which people on the move found ways to circumvent the controls of the permit system. The travel agency bought
temporary permits from those who had come from Pakistan but did not
want to go back there. The agency then sold these temporary permits to
those who wanted to permanently migrate to Pakistan.54 These attempts
to circumvent the permit restrictions were certainly noted by Delhi’s chief
commissioner, who reported that “[t]he influx of Muslims has decreased
with the enforcement of permit system. Many Muslims have, however,
arrived with temporary permits and there is a tendency to overstay or to
have the temporary permit converted into a permanent one.”55
The state’s anxiety about the ineffectiveness of the permit system in
restricting the return of Muslim refugees led to repeated attempts to improve its techniques. This meant that Muslims who were moving were
subjected to increasing regimes of control and surveillance. A No Objection Certificate (NOC) was introduced which Muslims, who were
living in India and wanted to visit Pakistan, had to first obtain from the
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moving people, immovable property
police and district magistrate. Before leaving India, they had to establish
themselves as belonging to India. Later, those visiting from or going to
Pakistan were required to report to the police station on their arrival.
Furthermore, “bona fide reasons” for travel to the “other side” had to be
proved, through medical certificates from a civil surgeon for visiting a sick
relative or guarantee bonds from inviting relatives.56 Continuing reports
of forged and false permits resulted in the introduction of photographs on
application forms as well as on permits.57
Most significantly, the Influx from Pakistan (Control) Ordinance and
the Pakistan (Control of Entry) Ordinance were both amended to make
overstaying on a temporary permit a criminal offense58 punishable by
fines, imprisonment, or most decisively, deportation. Thus many who
thought they had simply returned home became criminalized, fought
court cases, or faced deportations.
The Pakistani government permit regulations mirrored the Indian
techniques. However, for Muslims going to West Pakistan on forged or
temporary permits, it was easier to “disappear” if they did not want to
return to India. Karachi came to be largely dominated by muhajirs, who
became a significant part of its government apparatus and its civil institutions, and there was a sufficient informal network willing to assist “illegal”
arrivals, or relax enforcement of the law. On the other hand, Hindus who
remained in West Pakistan or attempted to return to their homes there
were less able to evade the permit’s disciplinary regimes.59
Because of their larger numbers, Muslims returning to India were perhaps most affected. A significant number of people started to be arrested
for overstaying temporary permits, but the courts found that the “crime”
was not so simple to adjudicate: most of these people claimed a belonging
in India, ancestral abodes as well as familial ties. They argued that even
if they had gone to Pakistan, they had never planned to make it their
home. In the absence of citizenship laws which could adjudicate on the
question of their belonging, a number of persons spent up to two years
in jail before a judgment was passed. Citizenship provisions (Articles 5–9)
were brought into force on November 26, 1949, in advance of the Indian
constitution itself,60 in all probability to deal with these increasing arrests
and court cases.
There were two articles in the citizenship provisions which were
particularly significant and established key relationships between birth,
residence, migration, and citizenship. Article 5 established “domicile” and
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birth “in the territory of India” as criteria for citizenship. The condition of “domicile” for purposes of adjudication had been passed down
through colonial law and derived from English law: it defined the domicile of children below the age of eighteen, considered “minors,” as vested
in that of the father; the domicile of women was dependent on that of
the father until marriage, and then in her marriage was defined as that of
the husband.
By making domicile a condition of citizenship, the new Indian citizenship laws (mirrored by the later Pakistani citizenship laws) were not
unique in subjecting the citizenship of women to fathers and husbands.
Gendered studies of citizenship point out that well into the twentieth
century and virtually everywhere in the world wives were subjects of
their husbands and could not be autonomous citizens.61 The requirements
of domicile established patrilocal residence as normative for citizenship,
with important effects for women and children in this disarray of familial
orders. For one, the “wife in Hindustan” of Amrohi’s couplet would lose
her entitlement by birth to Indian citizenship without ever leaving her
home. However, as permits were issued both to individuals and heads
of households on behalf of entire families, few permit court cases were
about women or children in particular, although that would change as
permits came to be replaced by passports—individual documents for individual citizens—in the years to follow.
Returning Muslims could not invoke Article 5 to claim citizenship
because of Article 7, which dealt specifically with Partition’s displacements. It established that those who had “after the first day of March
1947 migrated from the territory of India to the territory now included in Pakistan” would “not be deemed to be a citizen of India.”
However, “a person who, after having migrated to the territory now
included in Pakistan, has returned to the territory of India under a
permit for resettlement or permanent return” would be considered an
exception.62 Most of the court cases for overstaying temporary permits
were decided on the basis of Article 7 and raised critical questions of
what constituted migration. Could it be a matter of individual choice?
Or did the law function to produce historical closure in the making of
Partition’s new nations?
One of the earliest judgments to be reported from the Allahabad High
Court in 1951 was the case of Badruzzaman of district Rae Barelli in UP.
His entire family had continued to reside in their village, Bawan Buzrug,
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when he went to West Pakistan in May 1948, just before the announcement of the permit system. He returned to India on June 22, 1949, on a
temporary permit valid for one month. His stated purpose of visit was
“second marriage and fetching his family.” Subsequently he secured extensions on his permit until October 7. The government argued that it
had “evidence” that the “applicant’s second wife refused to accompany
him to Pakistan” and therefore he had remained in India beyond the
permitted period. He had attempted to obtain further extensions, and
had tried to get himself registered as a citizen of India. These attempts
had been unsuccessful, and as a result he was arrested on October 11, under the Influx from Pakistan (Control) Act, convicted, and sentenced to
nine months’ rigorous imprisonment. On appeal, his sentence had been
reduced to 500 rupees or three months of imprisonment.
Badruzzaman, in opposition to the government, claimed that he did
not want to return to Pakistan, and came to India on a temporary permit only because a permanent one was not available. He insisted that
he had never given up his Indian nationality and that he was still an
Indian citizen. His “evidence” included letters that he had written to
his family during his time in Pakistan, expressing his longing to return
to his father, and mourning his failed attempts to obtain a permanent
permit. The judge did not give much weight to these letters and noted
in the judgment that given “the great exodus of Muslim population
from Indian territory to Pakistan and of Hindu population from Pakistan to India and the historical events which led to the partition of the
country and the establishment of the two dominions—the facts proved
would undoubtedly indicate that when the applicant left India in May
1948 he did so in order to settle down in Pakistan and to adopt it as his
home country.”63
The judgment asserted a narrative of Partition and its displacements
in which Muslim refugees could only enter history by the fact of leaving. Citizenship was determined by Badruzzaman’s departure, which was
taken to legally constitute “migration,” and not by his “ardent desire to return.”The judgment declared his claims of belonging through established
familial ties as insufficient evidence of belonging to nation.
The much-referenced case of Shabbir Husain is a particularly important one because it questioned the judgment in Badruzzaman’s case and
debated the very meaning of the word migration as defined in the citizenship provisions. Could any journey to Pakistan constitute “migration”?
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How significant were the conditions in which a given journey to Pakistan had been undertaken?
Shabbir Husain was a resident of the village Kalyanpur, in district Bijnor of UP, where he had lived since his birth. He went to Lahore in 1948,
when the permit system was introduced, and returned to India on a temporary permit that was valid until January 1, 1949, although he had in fact
applied for a permit for permanent return. He overstayed his temporary
permit and was convicted under the Influx from Pakistan (Control) Ordinance of 1948. He applied to the UP government for permanent return
but was denied and an order was passed for his removal and deportation
to Pakistan. He was arrested from what he described as his ancestral home
on July 21, 1950, and remained confined in Bijnor jail until a judgment
was passed in his favor in 1952.
When Shabbir Husain went to Pakistan, he took with him an affidavit, sworn before a magistrate in Bombay, that he was going to Lahore
for business and would return to India after disposing of his goods in
two months. He obtained this affidavit just prior to his departure from
Bombay, as he had been unable to obtain an NOC in Bijnor. When he
submitted this affidavit along with his application for permanent return at
the Indian High Commission, he was given a temporary permit to return
home in lieu of the time needed for verification of his document.
Given Husain’s affidavit, and what might seem to be an absolutely clear
declaration of intention, the two judges of the high court deliberated over
eight pages on the meaning of the word migration as used in prior cases,
including Badruzzaman’s, as well as the Oxford English Dictionary. Judge
Raghubar Dayal concluded that Article 7 of the constitution defined migration as “the intention of shifting his permanent residence from India
to Pakistan,” a matter of changing “domicile,” while Judge P.L. Bhargava
argued that migration “has the notion of transference of allegiance from
the country of departure to the country of adoption.” Thus the mere fact
of departure from India did not constitute “migration” and could not be
folded into a history of mass exodus. Both judges agreed that Shabbir
Husain had no intention of permanent relocation or transfer of allegiance,
and was thus released.64
The Shabbir Husain case set the precedent that “migration,” according to law, had to have the “intention” of permanent relocation, and was
different from a mere journey. This led to countless deliberations on the
“intentions” of journeys and allowed some persons who were arrested for
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overstaying their temporary permits to obtain acquittal, avoid deportation, and be eventually deemed “Indian citizens.” But interpreting “intention to migrate” was a subjective matter and a range of rulings suggest
the arbitrary albeit legal process of determining which Muslims could be
citizens and which could not.
Here are two examples of this arbitrariness. Najib Khan claimed to
have merely gone to Pakistan to search for his sister’s son, but was judged
to have migrated to Pakistan, not only because he had returned on a temporary permit but because he had also applied for permanent return. The
application for permanent return, instead of affirming his “intentions” to
live in India, was interpreted as a confession of migration, for the application was technically only for those who had already migrated to Pakistan.65 In the case of some residents of Kutch it was customary practice in
conditions of famine to move to an area that had now become Pakistan.
They, as a result, took no permit with them, and also returned without
a permit. When arrested under the influx law they challenged the permit system as infringing on their right to movement guaranteed by the
constitution, and claimed their permanent homes in Kutch. The court
considered the restrictions of the permit system as “reasonable and in the
interest of the public” and they were deemed to have migrated because
they went to Pakistan with the purpose of making a living there.66
The effects of these permit prosecutions extended beyond those who
had gone to Pakistan for a range of reasons and were attempting to return.
In some of the cases, the person claimed to have never gone to Pakistan to
begin with, and therefore claimed that the permit case against them was
unfounded.The case of Izhar Ahmad is one such remarkable one. He was
arrested by police on August 20, 1952, under the influx law and was deported the next morning. He claimed that he had never been to Pakistan,
but since he had already been deported, his brother, Iqbal Ahmad, applied
to the courts for his return. Izhar Ahmad’s entire family, his parents and
his wife as well as his siblings, were resident in Bhopal. An astonishing
array of records were presented to attempt to prove that Izhar Ahmad
had never gone to Pakistan. This included school certificates, nikahnama
or marriage certificate, ration cards, a subscription to a mosque, electoral
rolls and voter’s list for the Legislative Council and Municipal Board.
However, the state claimed that he had gone to Pakistan and returned
through the eastern front where there were no regulations on movement,
and that it had obtained this information by a “secret method” which
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111
could not be disclosed in the interest of the public.This left Izhar Ahmad’s
family without the possibility of countering the evidence against him to
allow his return.67
With growing numbers of deportations to enforce the permit system (Ghulam Ali was not an exceptional case), the case of Ebrahim Vazir
Mavat and Others v. the State of Bombay reached the Supreme Court on
the question of whether deportation “oversteps the limits of control and
regulation when it provides for the removal of a citizen from his own
country.” Ebrahim Vazir Mavat had gone to Pakistan in March 1948, before the introduction of the permit system, and had returned a year later
on a permanent return permit. However, a few months after his return
on the permanent permit he was prosecuted for concealing the fact that
he had come to India earlier on a temporary permit. Although two and
a half years later the prosecution was withdrawn, he was served with a
deportation notice.This case also included Inamullah Khan, who claimed
to have never gone to Pakistan. Inamullah Khan, alias Qamar Jamali, was
the editor of the weekly Tarjuman in Bhopal. He was arrested on November 24, 1952, and taken to the border at Khokrapar for deportation on
March 18, 1953. Mavat and Khan, among others, argued that deportation
stripped citizens of their rights to contest the state’s charges of permit
violations, while the government argued that deportation simply placed
those who had “illegally” entered in the same place as those who were
denied permits for entry to begin with. Although this important Supreme
Court judgment ruled that deportation was indeed “an excessive power”
that also contravened the constitutional rights of a citizen, the defendants
had to first prove that they were indeed citizens.68 For most this meant
continued contestations in court, for permit violations inevitably engaged
questions of citizenship.
It is difficult to ascertain how many such cases took place all over
India, since only those that reach the high court were reported in law
digests. But the sheer number of popular legal guides (such as Mazhar
Husain’s The Law Relating to Foreigners in India and the Citizenship Laws of
India and Pakistan, reprinted four times) on such cases that were available
in the 1950s and even the 1960s indicates how significant these arrests,
deportations, and contestations in court over citizenship were for Muslims who remained, or wanted to remain, in India. The effects of these
cases extended beyond those individuals who were directly criminalized
and prosecuted. Reported in Al-Jamiat69 and presumably in other Urdu
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112
moving people, immovable property
newspapers, and circulated by word of mouth, they communicated the
terrifying necessity of aligning lives with bounded national identities as
Muslims in India began to be pushed out—literally across borders, and
symbolically into margins.
disciplining government servants
Government servants of the colonial state were asked to “opt” for India or
Pakistan in the months before Partition, but in recognition of the uncertainties that accompanied Partition a third “provisional” option was also
possible. In addition to the numerous “provisional optees” who changed
their service selection after Partition, there were thousands of Muslims
who “opted” for India but then went to work in Pakistan, and there
were over 16,000 Muslim employees who “opted” for Pakistan but then
desired to remain in India.70 The boundary between state and society is
a conceptual one which, as Timothy Mitchell has argued, has important
effects. However, that conceptual boundary blurs as we look within the
state at bureaucratic self-regulation, for the uncertainty in society permeates the functionaries of state.
I would like to focus here on the disciplining of familial ties of government servants after the introduction of the permit system. The fact that
government servants had “opted” to work for one state but had members
of families residing in the society of the other state became a source of
anxiety for both India and Pakistan, a source of “pollution” and danger.
Both governments demanded that its Hindu and later Muslim functionaries in the Pakistani case, and Muslim functionaries in the Indian case,
“show” that their families were residing with them or face termination
of employment.
In the case of the Delhi administration, the chief commissioner’s files
are an archive of this process of disciplining the state’s bureaucracy. Lists
of Muslims employed in every institution that came under the Delhi
government were drawn up, and they were asked to provide information
regarding the whereabouts of their “family.” If any of their family was in
Pakistan, they were served with notices that if they did not bring them
back in one month their employment would be terminated. It was announced that having family in Pakistan “would be prima facie evidence
of disloyalty to the Dominion of India.”71
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113
Family here was defined as the government servant’s nuclear or elementary family, made up of those legally constituted as “dependents.”
Here the focus was on the male civil servant’s wife, unmarried daughters,
and minor sons.72 By insisting that they reside with him, the state considered the patrilocal familial order as necessary for a Muslim male to be
a “loyal citizen.”
The lists drawn up by the various institutions of the Delhi government
are spreadsheets of Muslim familial ties and their spatial and affective
reconfiguration by Partition. Abdul Hamid, employed with the district
and sessions judge, could not locate his family since the disturbances.
Umar Baksh at the Malaria Institute of India had one brother as well as
his parents in Pakistan. Although the wife and two sons of Umar Daraz, a
superintendent of education, were in Pakistan, he argued that he had not
been on good terms with them for two years before Partition and did not
desire their return. On the other hand, Mohammad Ramzan’s wife and
one child were with him, but three of his adult sons and their wives were
living in Pakistan.
I examine here the responses of Muslims in the Delhi government to
the demand to bring back the family, as well as that of their supervisors. I
have reproduced an excerpt from one of the many lists in the file (see table
3.2).The lists are brief, but suggestive of how while some Muslim government servants made clear decisions to resign, others attempted to keep
their employment by expressing “keenness” to bring back their families, a
desire for reunion that was met with a classification of “doubtful.”The category of “doubtful” could be read as an intermediary to “disloyal” but captures all the ambivalence of casting long-standing employees, colleagues,
and sometimes friends into a field of suspicion, unemployment, and ultimately, dispossession. Only in one case in this entire list is the “keenness” to
remain in India rejected outright by the classification of “disloyal.” In the
other cases, “doubtful” raised skepticism about the explanation but at the
same time left the government servant/colleague some room to maneuver,
and negotiate with the state in what were still uncertain conditions.
Those who were classified as “doubtful” were required to submit explanations for the absence of their families. These explanations were often
lengthy in making the case that while they did wish to remain in India,
the particular and extraordinary nature of their familial circumstances prevented them from bringing their families back from Pakistan. For instance,
Sahibzada Aziz Ahmad Khan, a sub-registrar, wrote about his nervous
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On four months’ leave. Has submitted medical
certificate saying his wife is too ill to be moved.
A.A.
Inspector-General of Police’s
Office
Has two wives, one is here and the other and
her children are in Pakistan. Not good relations,
does not want to send for her.
Family in Pakistan, and on four months’ leave
prior to retirement.
Inspector-General of Police’s
Office
Inspector-General of Police’s
Office
N.T.
Only son is in service in Pakistan, rest of family
is in Delhi.
A.G.
Inspector-General of Police’s
Office
M.T.
All but his sons murdered, sons are in camps in
Sind. Both are of majority age.
Traffic policeman keen to get his wife back who
is in Lahore with her brother, but she hasn’t
replied to his letters.
Inspector-General of Police’s
Office
N.M.
Remarks of Head of Office
Doubtful
(continued)
SP says that in the circumstances bringing
second wife does not arise
Doubtful
Doubtful
SP says son is of majority age, no need to
bring him.
Superintendent of Police (SP) doesn’t think
he can bring his boys back.
Hasn’t brought back his family by Dec. 3, 1948Resigned and relieved of his duties, Jan. 17,
1949.
Explanation
Inspector-General of Police’s
Office
Chief Commissioner’s Office
A.A.
A.S.
Department
Name
table 3.2 Muslim Civil Servants in the Delhi Administration
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Family killed in disturbances. Survivors in
Pakistan. Houses looted and not keen to bring
back family.
Says he doesn’t have money to send for them
now but has opted for service in India. Family
left due to communal disturbances without his
knowledge. States that he has lost three children
in a refugee camp in Pakistan, but he is keen to
remain in Indian Dominion.
Wife and children with his brother in
Sheikhapura, and doesn’t have money to
bring them.
A.T.
CID
S.A.
Inspector-General of Police’s
Office
K.A.
Inspector-General of Police’s
Office
Son and daughter left with sister to Pakistan.
Requests two months’ leave to fetch them
R.M. Deputy Commissioner’s Office
Explanation
His two sisters migrated, so mother and younger
sister went there to see them and then permits
were imposed and younger sister is ill.
Department
Secretary and engineer, Delhi
Joint Water and Sewage Board
M.K.
Name
table 3.2 Muslim Civil Servants in the Delhi Administration (continued)
SP says that if government gives him money
he’ll bring them.
SP reports that this man does not intend to
bring his family to India and considers him
to be disloyal and has classified him as
“Doubtful.”
Deputy Superintendent of Police says he will
settle in Pakistan.
Given leave for twenty days to bring them.
Doubtful
Remarks of Head of Office
116
moving people, immovable property
sister, fevered daughter, and his own poor health and longing for his family
in his request for more time to bring them back:
Mine is a bit hard case. My wife died leaving two minor children
and I have not married since. These children were brought up by
my elder sister, who nursed them during their tender years. Naturally both the sister and the children are immensely attached to
each other. My sister preferred to remain unmarried and spent all
her life giving care and attention on these children. During the last
disturbances, cases of fatal stabbing and arson occurred in . . . our
mohalla. . . . All these news had a very adverse effect on my already
nervous and old sister . . . the climax was reached when the news
reached us that our eldest brother-in-law who migrated to Pakistan
under orders died soon after reaching Lahore, leaving his children
stranded. My sister’s nerves gave way and she firmly decided to
go to Lahore and attend the death ceremonies. She proceeded to
Lahore with some of our relatives and took my children with her.
Since last two months I am receiving letter from Lahore that my
daughter is not keeping well, she occasionally gets temperature.The
latest news about her is that she has cough as well. I am much nervous about her health. . . . All these factors have a telling effect on
my nerves, as I am very much attached to my children. My health is
running down, and I often get slight gout attacks and neuralgic and
gastric trouble. I myself badly need them back.73
Mubashir Ali, a superintendent in the Ministry of Relief and Rehabilitation, argued that in addition to transportation problems, his father’s
and wife’s illnesses and their destitution prevented their return; he was
more concerned for their return than the government was:
I went to Karachi to bring down my family to Delhi . . . I could not
however do so owing to the reason that the Jodhpur Railway had
stopped . . . and I could hardly afford to bring my family by means
of air transport. As a result I came back to Delhi alone on the 31st
of August 1948. Soon after my leaving Karachi the condition of my
father who was already sick, became serious and my wife was also
taken ill, and as there was nobody else who could look after them
during their sickness, my wife was compelled to come down . . . to
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Refugees, Boundaries, Citizens
117
Multan where besides her father she had a number of other relatives
who could attend to them. . . . Since they expressed their inability
even to move from the bed, I did not consider it worth a while to
do anything in this direction [of arranging their return]. I need not
here mention the troubles which my family is facing in Multan.
Suffice it to say that there being no proper accommodation my
aged and sickly father is passing this winter season on the roadside;
my two children of school going age are neither having any education nor coaching; and due to the lack of proper medical advice the
condition both of my father and wife is going from bad to worse
every day. . . .74
As these excerpts show, these letters of explanation did not make abstract claims of loyalty to the state by expressing love for the nation. Instead their authors stated their love for their families, their suffering caused
by separation, and their desire to be together. These are personal and
emotional appeals meant to solicit sympathy for the suffering wrought
by Partition’s dislocations. These appeals were made to supervisors who
probably knew them, and had met them face to face.
These letters were passed on with the supervisor’s remarks to the central government, the Ministry of Home Affairs. There a secretary made
the final decision to grant, or not grant, extensions on the time to bring
back families, and instructed the departments to terminate employment
accordingly. Here the decision became impersonal and abstract, and the
secretary at Home Affairs issued letters to take “disciplinary action” against
those still classified as “doubtful.”
However, in the case of a few individuals the correspondence between
supervisors and Home Affairs was lengthy, and tracks resistance to the
state’s attempt to self-discipline. The case of Mirza, a head clerk in Delhi’s
office of the Chief Medical Officer (CMO), is one such example. He
explained that his wife and three children had gone to see her brother
in New Delhi when disturbances broke out, and all of them had to take
refuge in Purana Qila. From there they left for Pakistan. Although he had
since tried to compel them to return to Delhi, his wife’s brother refused
to let her go because of “the disastrous scenes he had had the chance to
see during the disturbances.” Mirza’s explanation was favorably received
by his supervisor, for the latter noted that Mirza had “worked fearlessly
through the disturbances,” and also had an exceptional service record:
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118
moving people, immovable property
twenty-four years of “loyalty and conscientiousness.” The CMO himself added a handwritten note of agreement to this characterization of
Mirza.75 Therefore, even though Home Affairs deemed his explanation
“not at all satisfactory,”76 it was compelled to grant a “relaxation of rules”
for him. However, when a year later Mirza’s family had still not rejoined
him, Home Affairs issued a directive for “proper disciplinary action.” After
twenty-four years of hardworking “loyalty,” Mirza, through the stroke of
bureaucratic vigilance, became classified as “disloyal.”
Azmatullah, an official receiver at the Small Cause Courts, moved in
his own case from being classified as “doubtful” to “disloyal.” Azmatullah’s
explanation for his family’s absence was that his home on 4051 Sir Sayed
Ahmad Road in Daryaganj had been occupied by a refugee, and he had
been forced to live with his sister. Therefore, he had not brought his family back because he did not have a place for them to stay.77 The Office of
the Judge did not consider his argument credible and counterargued that
“any number of houses are available for Mohammadans in the localities
especially reserved for them.”78 Although the office had waited for him
to return to work after the “disturbances” until the end of December,
they now found “his conduct doubtful.”The judge’s office also noted that
Azmatullah’s adult son had opted to work for the government of Pakistan.
Azmatullah was given two weeks to bring his family back.
In July 1949, Azmatullah returned from Pakistan and claimed that he
was unable to get a permit for his wife, Ayesha Sultan Begum, although
she was ready to return with him.To make his case he made presentations
to a number of senior government officials, including Dr. Zakir Husain,
who wrote to Shankar Prasad, the chief commissioner of Delhi, on July
6, 1949, to say that Azmatullah “is a good man and genuinely anxious to
stay in India.”79 His file contains numerous petitions, including those to
the joint secretary at the Ministry of Relief and Rehabilitation to obtain
a permanent permit for his wife.80 As a result of what can only be interpreted as a determined attempt, he obtained an extension on the deadline
for the return of his “family.” (It appears that only his wife, as “family,” was
in question here.)
However, as late as 1950, when a CID investigation81 into his property
was initiated by the custodian’s office, Azmatullah was moved into the
category of the “disloyal.” The CID investigation inquired into all his siblings and their whereabouts and revealed that Azmatullah had a brother,
a Major Basharatullah, who had opted for the Pakistan Army, although
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119
his sisters and brothers-in-law were employed and living in India. It was
during the horrific September violence in Delhi that Azmatullah and his
mother, wife, and children had left for Pakistan. Although he had returned
prior to the permit system, the others had remained in Pakistan. The fact
that he had visited Pakistan four times, and spent the September holidays,
when civil courts close, in Pakistan was held against him. In addition he
was reported as trying to sell his house, which had been declared evacuee
property, to its current occupant, and this was interpreted as moving assets
with a view to move to Pakistan. (As I discuss in the next chapter, once a
property was declared evacuee the ownership became virtual, and selling
it was probably one of the few possibilities open to Azmatullah, although
there were restrictions on selling as well.)
Finally, an anonymous “Complaint Against the Official Receiver
Maulvi Mohammad Azmatullah” described him as “a disloyal subject of
Indian Dominion inasmuch as he keeps a Pakistan calendar in his office”
and therefore is considered to have “League Leanings.” The complaint
proved decisive. Home Affairs concluded that he “has been trying to get
the best of both worlds for as long as he can,” and the time had come for
him to be disciplined into a new national order.82
In the next chapter I examine the institution of the Custodian of
Evacuee Property and its role in producing displacements and internal
dispossession. However, here one can only conjecture as to what extent
the custodian’s inquiry played a role in Azmatullah being declared “disloyal” by the state, and to what extent family formations across this emerging
divide, and the ownership of a Pakistani calendar, sealed his fate.
Nonetheless, controlling the movement of specific people in a time
of massive displacement set in motion a political process with enormous
institutional effects, and made “doubtful” and “disloyal” into critical categories for transforming markers of religious community into citizens of
new nation-states.
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4. Economies of Displacement
[T]he houses that were lost forever continue to live on in us.1
T
he displaced of the Partition, both “Muslim refugees” and
“non-Muslim refugees,” lost their homes. This loss cannot be underestimated in the making of Partition’s new nations. After people took flight
they were unable to return to their homes because those houses had
come to be occupied by others.The laws that came to govern the leaving
and occupation of homes were the evacuee property legislations.
As we have seen, the Custodian of Evacuee Property was initially set up
to protect the properties of the displaced, the “evacuees,” until such time
that they could return to them.Thus it is ironic that the very formulation
of evacuee property laws as a cornerstone of rehabilitation programs of
both states ended up fixing the two sets of refugees in an oppositional
relationship, to make refugee return almost impossible. In India, the Muslim refugees were the “evacuees” while Hindu and Sikh refugees became
“displaced persons” who were to be rehabilitated through allotments of
“evacuee property.” The departure of Muslim “evacuees” thus came to
be perceived as necessary to accommodate Hindu and Sikh refugees. In
Pakistan, Hindu and Sikh refugees became “evacuees” whose properties
the custodian took over, while Muslim refugees or muhajirs became “dis-
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Economies of Displacement
121
placed persons” who could apply for the allotment of evacuee property.2
Thus, as we have seen, the departure of Hindu and Sikh “evacuees” came
to be used as the basis for calculating how many Muslim refugees could
be accommodated by the Pakistani state.
However, an important effect of evacuee property laws was that the
“evacuee” became a refugee category that began to encompass entire
religious communities and not just those who had been displaced by violence. This transformation in the character of evacuee property laws was
not immediate, but rather a piecemeal process in which the retaliatory
logic of the hostage theory legitimated countless amendments by both
states “in response” to each other. In this chapter I examine the national
economy of this transformation.
To be declared “evacuee” by the nation-state meant having “emptied,” or
having been forced to “empty,” one’s home as a space of belonging, of being
dispossessed of more than just a familial abode. Rafi bhai had mentioned how
his having returned from Pakistan on a permit led to his familial home being
declared “evacuee property.” Although the courts eventually acknowledged
him and his family as Indian citizens, they were unable to regain their familial
home.This effect of evacuee property laws, such that people who were considered legally Indian citizens became at the same time “evacuees,” made the
institution an instrument of internal displacement and dispossession.
The meaning of this dispossession was suggested to me when Rafi
bhai, at the end of a long interview, remembered that which was on the
verge of being forgotten:
Hanh! Ek cheez main bhul gaya batana ap ko! Ke khandan ki history aur
makan kaise bana—is sab ka ek scroll hai jo likh kar, ek botal ke undar
rakh kar, is makan ka jo darwaza hai is ke nıche dafan hai. Woh to bahut
deep ho ga kahı. Main ne puchha tha ke ye kya hai, to inhon ne kaha ke
kabhi historically, kabhi makan tota, aur us kı khuddaı hoı, to us waqt ye
nikal aye ga. Aur ye makan kin logon ka tha, aur us ka background tha,
kiya us par kharcha a‘ya—ye sarı cheezain thı . . .
[Long pause.]
Ye reh ga, ya nahin. Kaisı kaisı tehzibain khatm ho gaı. Harappa,
Mohenjodaro. Dekhye ap. “Rahe nam Allah ka,” ye kehte hai na jab esı
kahanian bataı jatı hai.
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moving people, immovable property
Ah! I have forgotten to tell you one thing! This family’s history and
how this house was made. There is a scroll for all this, on which it
is all written, and then placed inside a bottle, and is buried under
the doorway of the house. It must be very deep somewhere. I had
asked what is this, and they told me that at some time historically,
at some time when the house is finished (destroyed) and then it
is excavated, so, at that time this will come out. And who did this
house belong to, what was their background, how much it cost—all
these things are in it.
[Long pause.]
Will it survive or not? So many cultures have been finished.
Harrappa, Mohenjodaro. We shall see. “Allah’s name will remain,”
they say this, don’t they, when stories like these are told.
For Rafi bhai, the physical site of this house (makan) was tied to his
familial history (khandan ki history) not just through emotionally laden
memories of time spent there. The physical house, the scroll under the
threshold, contained a “written” record for posterity, for recovering a
particular history in which he located his very belonging. The need to
remember and tell me that which was on the verge of being forgotten,
whose survival was tenuous, was tied to a loss of this history itself.
As the past has repeatedly been folded into nation, the loss of Rafi
bhai’s familial home, as a result of it being declared evacuee property,
was further heightened by silences in the official record of the institution itself. In India, the evacuee property laws were abrogated in 1954,
and although court cases continue to this day, the government record in
Delhi was almost entirely destroyed in the 1960s. As a result, the secondary sources that I draw upon here on the Custodian of Evacuee Property
are largely from the 1950s. In Karachi, I trekked through the offices of the
Surveyor General, the Karachi Municipal Cooperation, the Karachi Development Authority, the Sind Archives, and the Evacuee Property Trust,
which today administers only non-Muslim religious buildings under its
care. At each of these institutions no one could find any records.
If the sentiment of loss is a product of the modern world’s ordering
of place and our knowledge of it, then the silence on evacuee property
in the economy of nation obliged me to recover its history in the rubble
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Economies of Displacement
123
of lost houses.3 It is from fragments and memory that I put together this
“lost” history, of the Muslim experience with the institution of evacuee
property in India (from the perspective of “evacuees”) as well as of evacuee property in Karachi (from the perspective of “displaced persons”). I
track how it “emptied” out religious minorities and pushed them to the
margins of nations-in-the-making—with chilling political legitimacy on
both sides.
nations, properties, minorities
Amid the mayhem in divided Punjab, as large numbers of people fled
from their homes and lands and massive looting and occupations followed, the Joint Defense Council decided at its meeting in Lahore on
August 29, 1947, to create the office of the “Custodian of Refugee’s Property” to protect the properties of the displaced. In that state of emergency,
the institution of the custodian was meant to take possession of these
properties and “manage” them, until such time that refugees could return
to them. Both governments also agreed not to recognize occupations and
seizures of property, and this combined intervention was meant to enable
the return of the displaced back to their homes and lands.4
To this effect, in early September 1947 the East and West Punjab Evacuee Property (Preservation) Ordinances were passed in divided Punjab to
empower the position of the custodian, and this legislation was extended
a few days later to Delhi when the city was also engulfed by violence.
Thus renamed (from “refugee property” to “evacuee property”), the office of the “Custodian of Evacuee Property” emerged, and this institution,
contrary to its initial premise of refugee return, made the displacements
more or less permanent by making one set of refugees into “evacuees”
and another set of refugees into “displaced persons.”
What transformed the fundamental nature of this intervention was
a dispute between the two states, which Jyoti Bhusan Das Gupta, in
her dissertation on Indo-Pak relations in 1958, described as equivalent
to the Kashmir dispute because of its belligerent nature.5 The problem
emerged concomitant with the formation of the Military Evacuation
Organization (MEO) and the “planned” nature of Punjab’s displacements. As I argued in the first chapter, the Pakistani government agreed
to a transfer of populations along religious lines in divided Punjab with
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moving people, immovable property
certain reservations. The considerably larger properties that Hindus and
Sikhs would leave behind, it conjectured, would allow it to accommodate the Muslim refugees that were already arriving, but it feared that if
a question of compensation arose then it would have to make payments
that it could not afford. Yet, accepting the principle of the transfer, the
government of West Punjab issued a West Punjab Economic Rehabilitation Ordinance alongside the evacuee property legislation, which simultaneously created the position of rehabilitation commissioner, who
was empowered to take possession of abandoned properties, agricultural
lands, and businesses and “allot” them to Muslim refugees for a period
of one year.6 By the end of the year, it passed an additional ordinance
whereby transfer of evacuee property could only be done with permission from the custodian, thus curtailing individual attempts by “nonMuslim refugees,” or now “evacuees,” to sell or exchange properties.7
In response, the Indian evacuee property legislation was altered so that
the office of the custodian could also “allot” evacuee property to “displaced persons” and made transfers equally difficult. Also, it decided that
those who had occupied houses would not be removed until alternative housing could be found for them. It needs to be emphasized that
despite occupations and allotments of evacuee property, a cornerstone
of the evacuee property agreement was that the displaced maintained a
right in their properties left behind—people who had moved, and their
property that had not, remained tied to each other, albeit in what would
come to be called “imaginary ownership.”8
It has been argued that a nation is “a collection of individuals and their
properties.”9 However, here not only were individuals and their properties separated, but other individuals had occupied their properties left
behind. If the impossibility of the displaced being able to return to their
homes had been recognized and the institution of evacuee property declared null and void then the Custodian of Evacuee Property would not
have had the far-reaching effects it did. Yet the “evacuee” and evacuee
property were retained as a device of rehabilitation, and calculations of
the economic value of these properties acquired significance in the intergovernmental dispute that ensued.
The dispute occurred, as feared by the Pakistani government, over
the question of compensation.10 The Indian government wanted evacuee
property to be settled between the two governments, since the possibility
of refugee return, the unmaking of refugees, was already curtailed by the
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agreement on the transfer of populations in Punjab and by the emergence
of permits. The Indian government claimed that since the evacuee property left behind by non-Muslims was far greater in value than the evacuee
property of Muslims in India—a difference it calculated to the sum of
400 crores11—the Pakistani government should pay India for it. In addition, the Indian government’s rehabilitation scheme involved compensating the now retitled “displaced persons” from a collective “compensation
pool” that would include Muslim evacuee property in India and the differential payments Pakistan would make.
This mathematics was of course disadvantageous to the Pakistani government, which argued that it was India’s “obsession that much more
evacuee property lay within the boundaries of Pakistan” and that this
“obsession” was “not based upon any reliable figures . . . but only upon
a general feeling.”12 The Pakistani government took the official position
that the value of evacuee property on the two sides of divided Punjab and
Delhi was more or less equivalent, and that therefore refugees on an individual basis should sell or transfer their properties that they had left behind and obtain whatever they could for their properties on the market.
The most important negotiations on evacuee property took place in
January 1949 and resulted in what was called the Karachi Agreement. In
the Karachi Agreement, the rights of “evacuees” in their property was reaffirmed and it was agreed that 1) the laws would encompass only “agreed
areas”13 from where mass migration had occurred due to “disturbances”;
2) that the free sale and exchange of urban immovable property would be
allowed; and 3) that while the properties could be used temporarily for
rehabilitation, with allotments made for up to three years, the custodian
would collect rent on those properties and transfer the amount to the
other dominion.14
However, notes made by Pakistani officials at the negotiations show
that the “agreement” was an uneasy one. There were disagreements over
not only what regions should be included in “agreed areas” but also over
who was to be considered an “evacuee.” Pakistan wanted to contain the
category of the “evacuee,” while the Indian officials wanted to leave it
open.Therefore, Pakistani officials at first suggested that evacuee property
laws should only apply to government servants, but not otherwise, while
the Indian side argued that this distinction was arbitrary. In response, the
Pakistani officials suggested a “limit date” to include those who had migrated before September 30, 1948. India opposed this definition, claiming
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it would be unfair to Hindus and Sikhs who had “migrated” after that
date (those leaving Sind, for example). Pakistan’s minister of refugees remarked that “India does not seem to have given expression to her real
reasons for opposing a ‘limiting’ date . . . [because] it may be that India is
thinking not of Hindu/Sikh evacuees but of Muslims still in the ‘agreed
areas’ in India whose migration to Pakistan they wish to encourage . . .
for the imposition of a limiting date for migration would automatically
limit the Muslim evacuee property in those areas to whatever has already
been abandoned.”15
Soon after the Karachi Agreement, there were rapid transformations
in evacuee property legislation and abusive application on both sides. As
a result it came to be described as an “abnormal law” and a “necessary
evil”16 by the time of its repeal by the Indian government in 1954. Failure
to collect and transfer rents on the Pakistani side led to an Indian view
that the intergovernmental solution was not tenable; Pakistan could not
be compelled to pay its part toward the compensation pool. As a result,
the Indian state undertook a number of changes in legislation, changes
which were mirrored by the Pakistani state.
First, soon after the Karachi Agreement, which allowed for the sale or
exchange of evacuee property, the Indian government believed that “as a
result of recent evacuee property legislation, a large number of Muslim
evacuees from Pakistan [we]re coming to India on temporary permits in
order to make arrangements for the disposal of their properties before
they are taken over by the custodian.” The following circular was sent by
the Ministry of Rehabilitation:
I am to point out that it is extremely essential that Muslims coming to India on temporary visits are not allowed to dispose of their
properties in India and that any property which is evacuee property
under the law, is taken over by the custodian concerned . . . I am
to request that every possible care should be taken to ensure that
properties belonging to Muslims which fall under the definition of
evacuee property are not allowed to go undetected.17
Thus the Ministry of Rehabilitation directed district administrations
that counterfoils of temporary permits issued by the High Commission
in Pakistan, which were usually sent to the superintendents of police, be
forwarded to the custodian or deputy custodian of evacuee property for
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that area, so that he could “trace out the properties of such persons, if any,
and to take them over as evacuee property.” In keeping with the use of
permits for surveillance, a set of questions on evacuee property became
part of permit application forms. This included information regarding
the applicant’s immovable property, details of properties owned in India,
the identities of its current residents, and whether it had been declared
evacuee or not. In addition, the form asked if any property was owned or
allotted in Pakistan, for an affirmative in this regard could lead to a person
being declared “evacuee.”18
Second, the Indian government extended the jurisdiction of the evacuee property laws to the whole of India, with the exception of Bengal.
In divided Bengal these laws were very differently executed because of
a larger attempt not to disturb the equilibrium between minorities on
both sides.19 The extension of evacuee property laws had implications,
for the original legislation in the Punjab and Delhi defined an “evacuee”
as “any person displaced from his usual place of habitation.” This meant
that “a person could be declared evacuee if he left his ordinary place of
residence and migrated either to another mohalla or another quarter of
the same town.” This definition carried over into legislations in UP as
well as Bombay, and therefore meant that, as A.P. Jain, the minister of
rehabilitation later noted, persons who had not migrated to Pakistan or
who had not received any allotment of evacuee or abandoned property
in Pakistan were also declared as “evacuee.” It was only in 1950 that the
definition of an “evacuee” was clarified to mean only persons who had
migrated to Pakistan.20
Third, in the same year, and on the heels of this redefinition of an
“evacuee,” another category was added to legislation: that of “intending
evacuee.” The “intending evacuee” was meant to enlarge the compensation pool by encompassing “someone seen as making a preparation for
his migration”; a mechanism was thereby created to take control of their
property before they became “evacuee.” A person who had never gone to
Pakistan could become an “intending evacuee,” and as a consequence his
property could not be transferred in any way until the custodian decided
whether it was evacuee or not.21 Although there were conditions attached
to who could be declared “intending evacuee,” they only added to the
capriciousness of the term “evacuee,” allowing it to be used to encompass virtually all Muslims who owned property in India, and similarly all
Hindus in West Pakistan.
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moving people, immovable property
On April 6, 1951, an important debate took place in Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly on evacuee property when the Pakistan (Administration
of Evacuee Property) Act was amended to add the “intending evacuee”
clause to mirror the Indian legislation.22 The retaliatory logic of the hostage theory entirely legitimated this amendment, even though only about
2 lakh Hindus remained in West Pakistan and the amendment could not
possibly add substantially to the value of evacuee property there, but was
certain to further discriminate against this remaining community. Dhirendra Nath Dutta pointed out that the clause would leave much to the
“imagination of the custodian,” and Raj Kumar Chakraverty criticized
its retaliatory logic. Seth Sukhdev of Sind noted with great sadness that
“very bad times [we]re coming” for it would “push out” the last remaining Hindus that had property in West Pakistan.Yet Dr. I.H. Querishi, the
former history professor from Delhi University and now the minister
of refugees and rehabilitation, legitimized this amendment in the laws
because the Indian state was perceived to be profiting “at the cost of
her own Muslim nationals.” He responded to the “alarm of minorities”
by arguing that if “a certain section of the population is put to a little
more inconvenience than the others; on such occasions it is the duty of
all loyal citizens of the state to bear those hardships.” It is evident in this
debate that there were no illusions about the effects of the institution in
encompassing entire religious minorities, who were to be “punished” for
the treatment Muslims were receiving in India. In other words, evacuee
property by this time was no longer about rehabilitation alone, but was
being retained and expanded in legislation to function as an internal
border-making device, separating minority religious communities by asking them to prove their “loyalty,” even if this meant internal dispossession
and being “pushed out.”
Fourth, the Evacuee Interest (Separation) Act was passed in India in
1951 to take into custody properties whose part-owners were “evacuees,” and it provided rules for the separation of the interest of “evacuees”
from those of “non-evacuees” in “composite properties.”23 This legislation particularly affected joint family or ancestral homes where an array
of kin lived together but one or more of the part-owners of the property
had left for Pakistan. The “separation of interests” between “evacuee” and
“non-evacuee” entailed the actual physical division of the property “by
metes and bounds” by the custodian. In cases where such physical division of a property was not possible, the “non-evacuee co-sharers” had the
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option to buy the “evacuee share,” but if they were unable to do so then
the entire property was auctioned. This meant the displacement of even
those who were “non-evacuee” under the law.These provisions were also
added to the Pakistani laws.
A realization of the institution’s exclusionary power was felt early in
its application in India. In 1948 G. D. Khosla was appointed to look into
the workings of the Custodian of Evacuee Property because of the “unprecedented nature of the business.”24 I have already quoted his conversation with Gandhi on the subject of “empty” Muslim houses in Delhi. In
February 1948, Kazi Syed Karimuddin pointed out to the Indian Assembly that the evacuee property laws were “causing great hardship to the
Muslims of Delhi and particularly to the pardahnashin [veiled] ladies,” but
received the short reply that these laws had been promulgated to “mirror” Pakistan’s, and this retaliatory logic served to silence its local effects.25
However, in the ensuing years evacuee property’s important role in the
discourse of rehabilitation for the well-being of the putative nation was
so powerful that it justified the institution and led to the widening of its
captive net. In addition, the controversial resignation in 1951 of Achhru
Ram, the custodian general of evacuee property, marked an attempt to
check its excesses.
Ram was asked to resign by A.P. Jain, the minister of rehabilitation,
because Ram gave two contradictory judgments on the status of a Mr.
Chhatriwala, as to whether he was an evacuee or not. In a judgment on
September 6, 1950, Ram had declared Chhatriwala as not an evacuee because he had gone to Pakistan before the introduction of the permit system and had returned. As a result, his property which had been declared
evacuee was returned to him. But in another judgment a year later, Ram
declared him once again an evacuee, taking the position that his earlier
view was not binding. Although this capriciousness was almost built into
the application of evacuee property laws, the demand for Ram’s resignation came as an attempt to restrain these powers of the laws.
Ram, in his letter of explanation to Jain, wrote that he had accepted
the office of custodian general “in response to the touching appeals received from hundreds of my displaced brethren . . .” The fact that the
custodian saw his role as primarily concerned with his “displaced brethren” (including only Hindu and Sikh refugees) reflects the divisive shift
in the practice of the institution. This is also reflected in an ordinary legal
guide on evacuee property, which remarks that its purpose was for “this
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property . . . ultimately to be used for compensating the refugees who
had lost their property in Pakistan.”26
Jain, in turn, reiterated the original conception of evacuee property,
that the task of the custodian was to consider “yourself as much interested
in the persons on whose behalf you have held the property” that the “title
of the property continues to vest in the evacuees,” even if it is allotted.
However, the analogy that Jain drew to make his point was that the Custodian of Evacuee Property was meant to function like the Custodian of
Enemy Property appointed during the Second World War.27 This analogy,
equating “evacuee” with “enemy,” is noteworthy for placing the South
Asian custodian in a comparative history of mass displacements in the
mid-twentieth century.
The Custodian of Enemy Property was established in Britain during
the years of the Second World War, from 1939 to 1945. It was a part of
the “trading with the enemy” legislation which allowed the British government to take over the properties of “belligerent enemies” in Britain,
which included citizens of Germany, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria,
as well as “technical enemies,” which included citizens of Czechoslovakia
and Poland. This institution took over the properties of 220,000 people,
and a more recent recognition of its abuses has led to British legislation
to compensate its victims.28
However, the subcontinent’s legislation has closer, disturbing parallels with the Israeli state’s Custodian of Absentee Property. It was not
only nearly contemporaneous to the South Asian institution; it may also
have been to a certain extent self-consciously modeled after it. Accounts
of the custodian’s office in Israel have argued that the legislation served
to “empty” the land of Palestinian Arabs and construct the myth of a
voluntary exodus. In Israel, the Emergency Regulations on Property of
Absentees were passed on December 2, 1948, and were later converted
into the Absentee Property Act of March 2, 1949. According to this Israeli
legislation, Arabs not present in their homes on November 29, 1948, were
declared “absentees” and their properties were appropriated, even if they
had only gone to a neighboring town. Although in the original evacuee
property legislation in India and Pakistan the same definition of evacuee
made sense—most of the displaced moved to camps in a state of emergency and uncertainty—the later use of this definition in places like UP
and Bombay where Muslims owned considerable properties meant internal dispossession of some scale. The Israeli legislation preserved the rights
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of ownership while restricting transfers, and a Development Authority
was established to then allot the “empty houses” to Jewish immigrants
for up to six years. The South Asian custodian was set up on similar lines,
and a rehabilitation commissioner performed the role of the Development Authority. However, later, and unlike the South Asian institution,
the Israeli legislation was changed and the Development Authority was
allowed to sell the properties to the Israeli state, the Jewish National Fund,
and other organizations. As further changes were made in the Israeli laws,
it produced Arab Israeli citizens who came to be classified as “present
absentees,” parallel to the South Asian “intending evacuees.”29
Similarly, the effects of evacuee property in “emptying” out religious
minorities and producing internal dispossession cannot be underestimated. However, the realization by the Indian state that Muslims were being
dispossessed while living in India led at first to removal of the “intending
evacuee” clause in 1953 and then the final abrogation of the law in its entirety in 1954.30 A long and important debate took place in the Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1952, when Jain first proposed the removal
of the “intending evacuee” clause but faced considerable resistance. This
debate locates the discursive effects of evacuee property in the making of
new nations.
Jain had to walk a tightrope in proposing the removal of the “intending evacuee” clause: he was arguing for Muslim inclusion while at the
same time appearing to protect the interests of (non-Muslim) refugees.
Jain made a long presentation on the history of the evacuee property laws
as he built the case that “we have taken care that while the evacuee pool
does not suffer, at the same time if any provision of this bill discriminates
against any citizen of this country, whatever may be his caste or creed or
religion, then such provision needs modification”:
It does good to nobody. It does not add anything to the evacuee
property [compensation] pool. At the same time it does a lot of harm
to one section of our people. In fact, I have been of late receiving a
large number of representations and come across some heartrending
cases in which some Muslim citizen of India wanted to sell his property but people were afraid to buy it or at any rate were not willing
to pay the full price for it because they thought that that citizen may
be declared an intending evacuee or because the transaction may not
be confirmed under section 40. . . . The chief minister of Saurashtra
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wrote to the prime minister that there was a certain Muslim in that
state who wanted to sell his house to maintain his cattle because there
was scarcity of fodder but no purchaser was forthcoming because
nobody was sure whether that Muslim would not subsequently be
declared an intending evacuee and the sale may not be confirmed.
There was the case of a nationalist Muslim—a person much devoted
to the motherland as any member here—who even refused to attend
the marriage of his relatives in Pakistan, who wanted to mortgage
but, found difficulty in doing it. That state of things, I submit, is no
good. . . .31
Jain presented the ways in which “Muslim citizens” were being discriminated against by the all-encompassing “intending evacuee” clause,
but his argument that Muslims were “our people” and deserved fair treatment was met with considerable resistance from Sardar Hukam Singh.
Singh derived authority for his argument from the “lofty ideal” of nation
itself, in which “what is best for my country, what is best for the citizens
of this country” gave him legitimacy. In terms of this “lofty ideal,” the
“question of evacuee property and the compensation that they have to
get [we]re very intimately connected with the fate of the refugees.” The
economy of rehabilitation was centrally based on the value of evacuee
property, and Muslim houses and businesses could not be separated from
the compensation pool.Thus acquiring as much evacuee property as possible had a driving economic imperative. He argued that refugees had
been led to believe that Muslim evacuee property would contribute 350
crore rupees, but this amount was now reduced to 50–70 crore because
of a “liberal attitude” toward Muslims like the Chhatriwalas to whom
properties had been restored. Jain argued that only forty-two evacuee
properties had been returned to owners in cases where it was found that
the “evacuee” had not really left India, but Singh contested these seemingly paltry figures.
The argument between Jain and Singh over numbers and the value of
evacuee property was most revealing when it turned to “Muslim zones”
in Delhi which were outside the jurisdiction of the custodian:
sardar hukam singh: Then, there is another thing. There are in
Delhi alone about 3,500 houses, I am told.
shri a. p. jain: I might correct you. There are only 121.
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sardar hukam singh: I am told that there are 321 . . .
shri a. p. jain: No, 121. Which houses, you mean in the Muslim
zones?
sardar hukam singh: Exactly? 3,500 according to my information,
which must be wrong, I say. But I cannot believe they are 121.
The custodian is not allowed to go there. Possession has not been
taken. The Jamiat is keeping possession of them and distributing
as it likes. It is not permitted that any Hindu or Sikh might go
inside that. There are Muslim zones for the past five years and
that is being continued up to date. What right have they? Is this
loyalty to India that they can keep those doors closed? Those
zones are closed to everybody. Even the custodian cannot go
and take possession of them. People are lying on the streets, but
these houses must be kept intact and we should wait till the right
owner comes!
We saw in the last chapter how Muslim zones were described as miniPakistans by the deputy commissioner of Delhi, a view linked to the
implication that Muslims in India were a “fifth column” for the Pakistani
state.This had helped legitimize a permit system to prevent Muslims from
returning to India. Thus Singh’s perception that Muslim zones equaled
Muslim disloyalty had prior underpinnings.
The debate on the legitimacy of evacuee property quickly became not
only about rehabilitation economics, but also about questions of “loyalty”
and whether Muslims were being pushed out or wanted to leave India.
Singh argued that there were two sets of Muslims: “honest Muslims” and
others. An “honest Muslim would [not] be threatened and be obliged to
leave this country” because of the Custodian of Evacuee Property. But
the others, “those persons who had no intention of living here,” were to
be encompassed by the law. Importantly, for Singh the Muslims “who had
no intention of living here” included those who had families in Pakistan.
These others had not only sent their wives and children away, and taken advantage of allotments of evacuee property there, but were running
businesses and maintaining their children there. The fact that they might
be “carrying on their business there and they are good citizens here”
was deemed inadmissible. Although there were limitations on remittances
for families between India and Pakistan, Singh assured the Assembly that
“there is no check on the large amounts that are going out.” This “great
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flow of money” between Muslim families in India and Pakistan, made
possible by earlier “liberal” evacuee property laws, was a direct threat because “[u]nder that law I can only say that even the builders of Pakistan
had been receiving large amounts from our country.” Thus financially
crippling Muslims living in India with evacuee property laws was seen as
having a positive effect in actually undermining the Pakistani state.
If this institution of the Custodian of Evacuee Property, the cornerstone for refugee rehabilitation in both postcolonial states, can be examined in comparison to the better-documented Israeli parallel, then it may
be possible to begin accounting for a long Partition of displacements,
produced not just by civic violence but through planned rehabilitation
in both states. On the one hand, the custodian served to “push out” or
“empty out” those constructed as minority religious communities, as if
their displacement constituted voluntary migration. On the other hand,
evacuee property produced large-scale internal displacements, particularly in India where a far larger number of Muslims remained. By making
citizens into “evacuees” and “intending evacuees,” it functioned like an
internal border, pushing marked groups into margins within the nation
by demanding of them “loyalty” even in the face of persecution.
evacuee property in delhi and up
After evacuee property laws were abrogated by the Indian state in 1954,
they became a part of the nation’s history that needed to be effaced and
written over. As a result, in 1961 the Ministry of Rehabilitation produced
a brochure on evacuee property32 outlining its history as one acceptable
to the nation, the story of “an abnormal law” “necessitated by an abnormal situation created by the Partition,” but followed with “humanity and
justice.” This brochure was circulated to its diplomatic missions around
the world, and instead of projecting an Indian perspective in opposition
to that of the Pakistani state, the Ministry of External Affairs noted that
it aimed to show “the humane manner in which this abnormal law has
been dealt with and the various concessions that have been given to Muslim nationals in India.”33
Thus the international relations brochure focused not on the number
of persons declared “evacuee” or the value of properties declared evacuee,
or its relationship to the compensation pool, but rather on the number
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of properties that were restored to Muslims who had initially left and
had then returned. This included the Meos of Alwar and Bharatpur, who
had initially left for Pakistan but had returned by October 1949, as well
as those who returned under the Nehru-Liaqat Pact of April 8, 1950
(which I shall discuss in next chapter).34 Since these Muslims had left,
the evacuee property laws encompassed them, but on their return a “humanitarian” view was taken by the Indian state. In addition, when the law
was repealed persons in certain categories were asked to submit applications for restoration, and the 8,000 applications received were dealt with
by special officers and district and sessions judges appointed for the task.
Also, the brochure did not focus on how those declared “evacuees” had
to prove they were “non-evacuees,” but did mention that adjudication
after 1954 no longer required “ration cards as evidence of continuous stay,
and where original deeds were not available then other revenue records,
municipal records etc. were allowed.” In sum, it emphasized that properties worth 10 crore had been restored to Muslims. Here are two excerpts
from the brochure:
In processing these applications the human aspect has all along been
kept in the forefront . . . [If] those decisions though legally correct
would cause considerable hardships to the evacuees or their dependents, the government to mitigate hardship in such cases has given
ex-gratia grants to the persons concerned on humanitarian grounds.
Judicious Use of Law and Human Aspect: This law was a necessary evil
which both India and Pakistan had to follow to meet the abnormal situation. India has tried to minimize the effects of this law by
following liberal and humane policy in regard to the release and
restoration of evacuee property . . . In retrospect it can therefore
safely be claimed that India made a judicious and liberal use of even
this abnormal law despite various internal as well as external stresses
and strains.
The history of nation is rarely represented as one of exclusion and
prejudice, so this official history of evacuee property in India is not exceptional. While evacuee property laws were recognized as “abnormal,”
such that “legally correct” decisions based on this law required mitigation,
the state claimed to have “minimized” its effects with its “humane policy.”
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Here a “humanitarian” view emerges as the state’s response to its own
bureaucratic violence.
However, the rewriting of the contentious history of “Muslim zones”
of Delhi is particularly significant for it need not have been included in
the brochure at all, given that these zones were outside the jurisdiction of
the custodian. Yet by including them, they served to counter any charge
of Muslim discrimination:
Disposal of Properties in Predominant Muslim Areas of Delhi: In
the matter of sale of evacuee property in the predominantly Muslim
areas in Delhi the concessions which have been given to all Muslim
occupants of these properties are not even available to the displaced
persons. Such properties are offered to the Muslim occupants at reserve price irrespective of whether their value is up to Rs10,000 or
more. In the case of displaced persons, only properties up to the value
of Rs10,000 are offered at reserve price, while those of higher value
are invariably sold by auction. The Muslim occupants can pay the
price of the property in installments and the balance in seven annual
equated installments in cash or by association of compensation claims.
The relations of the occupants can purchase property provided they
are residing with the occupants. In case the Muslim occupants do not
wish to purchase the property it is offered to some registered body of
Muslims like Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind. It is also referred to any other
Muslim provided he is nominated by the said body.
Muslim zones were dramatically transformed in this narrative, for they
were no longer a marker of “Muslim disloyalty,” nor were “empty houses”
there a source of struggle. All dissent and disagreement was wiped out
and replaced by an extraordinary story of Muslim privilege in the new
nation.
This document of the state’s humanity toward Muslims becomes all
the more poignant against the other layers of silences that accompany it.
Secondary sources that I draw upon here are largely from the 1950s and
focus entirely on the intergovernmental dispute over the value of evacuee
property and the intransigence of Pakistan in not paying its part in the
compensation pool.35 After the law was abrogated and the intergovernmental dispute rendered void, the Custodian of Evacuee Property was no
longer to be a subject of inquiry. In addition to that, most of the docu-
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ments on evacuee property in the Delhi State Archives were destroyed
in the 1960s. The index of the commissioner’s records lists files on the
hundreds of properties that came under the custodian’s net, but simply
provides a date for when they were destroyed. In addition to individual
case files, files covering correspondence, procedures for taking possession
of properties left by Muslims, allotments of houses to refugees, and distributions of land evacuated by the Muslims in Delhi province, as well as
complaints, and petitions have mostly been destroyed.36
Thus I examine here some fragments from memories, newspapers, and
a few files and court cases to provide alternative stories of the Muslim
experience of the institution. To begin with, there are some traces of
individual attempts to exchange properties outside of the planned intergovernmental frame and these are important to recover from under the
hegemonic two-state ordering of place. For instance there were some
people who had decided to migrate prior to Partition, and they, in anticipation of their migration, arranged an exchange of properties on an
individual basis. I interviewed a member of a divided family whose father
had arranged such an exchange of their home in UP with that of a Punjabi Hindu family in Lahore and after migrating had initially moved into
that house before finally resettling in Karachi. The petition of Vas Dev
Varma to K. C. Neogy (the first minister of rehabilitation) concerned
such an exchange, of a shop in Delhi with his own in Lahore. He found
the former looted on his arrival in Delhi in October 1947.37
It is possible that such exchanges were arranged by property “specialists” (see figures 4.1 and 4.2), for although transfers of property came
to be restricted by evacuee property laws, after the Karachi Agreement there was an announcement that exchanges would once again be
allowed, and Al-Jamiat began to carry a large number of advertisements
by businesses and consultants for the exchange and sale of property. Below are some of the advertisements for “tabadala-e-jaedad” that appeared
in Al-Jamiat:
Tabadala-e-jaedad: To buy or sell, immediate advice will be given.
Karachi, Rawalpindi, Lahore, in almost every city of both countries,
properties worth arabs are with us. In nearly every city of Pakistan and Hindustan we have an office or a representative. General
Manager: Raghu Ram Dhoon and Co., corner of Ballimaran and
Chandni Chowk, Delhi.38
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moving people, immovable property
figure 4.1 Advertisement for “tabadala-e-jaedad” (property exchange), Jang, December 11, 1947, by Ahmad Ali, Adamji Abdul Ali Building, Karachi.
Farookht aur Tabadala-e-jaedad: To buy or exchange property. Lahore’s
famous property dealer, Mohan Co., A Block, Connaught Place,
Delhi. Get exchange/transfer forms immediately from him. With
the best of properties approved, they are in an excellent position to
offer you services. This month their offices are opening in Lahore,
Karachi, and Rawalpindi. Phone number 8150.
Tabadala-e-jaedad: Do you have any property in Pakistan? Contact
Lala Moti Ram Bhalla, property dealer.
Khaas ‘Ailan [special announcement]: Muslims of Hindustan. One
[who is] informed of the sale of their jaedad or its transfer—Syed
Ahmed Farid Ahmed saheb, government auctions, expert on property exchange in India and Pakistan, Bazaar Matia Mahal, Jama Masjid, Delhi. Provide all details so that according to the new ordinance,
you can be guided. Syed Moinuddin saheb Haqi, B.A.39
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figure 4.2 Exchange of properties, Al-Jamiat, February 6, 1949. Universal Property
Dealers, 64 Regal Building, Connaught Place, Delhi.
In addition Hindu and Sikh refugees placed personal ads in Al-Jamiat,
so that Muslims of the city who were migrating to Pakistan could contact
them. One such advertisement announced:
In Bannu we wish to exchange the following properties to Amritsar or some big city of Hindustan: 1) One residential bungalow, 2
floors, 14 rooms, with electricity and water, building of uptodate
design, value Rs.60,000.
These advertisements suggest an entrepreneurial spirit that sought to
informally resolve a situation in which people had been forced to move
but their properties had been left behind. It is difficult to assess how successful these specialists were as middlemen between two states, how they
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moving people, immovable property
functioned, and if they were trustworthy. But their entrepreneurial spirit
was eclipsed by planned rehabilitation in which all individual properties
became part of a collective compensation pool, and these advertisements
came to be overshadowed by transformations in the evacuee property
regulations that followed the Karachi Agreement.
Soon long lists started to appear almost daily of Muslim houses which
had been declared “evacuee” by the Custodian’s Office. Sometimes they
were several pages long and dominated the newspaper, even if it carried
other stories in its headlines. Its impact must have been quite substantial, for shortly after the lists started appearing, Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind
(JUH) began running announcements to “Delhi’s Muslims who have not
gone to Pakistan, and do not have any intentions to do so, but that their
properties have been taken over illegally by the Custodian,” to report the
najaiz qabza (illegal seizures) immediately to Aruna Hall in Urdu Bazaar.
In addition, Al-Jamiat announced free legal help at Jama Masjid for
those Muslims of Delhi who had been declared “evacuee”40 (see figure
4.3). Another announcement ran as follows: “For those who are outside
Hindustan and have been declared muhajir, or those whose part property
has been declared muhajir or that person who has been declared muhajir and his home or business has been allotted by the custodian, please
come to the following address: Incharge Office of Legal Help Committee, Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind, Galli Qasim Jan, Delhi.”41 As show cause
notices were served on Delhi’s remaining Muslims which classified them
as “evacuee” or “muhajir” (both the English term and this Urdu translation were used), the JUH attempted to organize a response, for this meant
more than just a loss of property—it also meant a loss of belonging in a
nation that many had chosen to stay in despite the September violence
and its aftermath.
Although JUH was at the forefront in the struggle against the institution of evacuee property, Al-Jamiat was remarkably cautious in criticizing
the Custodian’s Office. Given that debates on the validity of evacuee
property laws were so intertwined with questions of Muslim loyalty,
JUH’s cautious tone is understandable, as it had to contest discrimination
without appearing too critical of the Indian state. It of course noted that
the custodian had taken over not only those properties that were “truly
evacuee” but also the property of Delhi’s current Muslim residents. However, it suggested that in many of these cases the custodian did not know
of this dispossession.42 In another editorial, Al-Jamiat argued that joint
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figure 4.3 Important announcement regarding properties that have been taken over
by the custodian, Al-Jamiat, February 7, 1949.The ad requests that people register with
the legal help for JUH in Galli Qasim Jan, Delhi.
family homes were being taken over because of “mistakes” and a “lack of
carefulness and lack of information” on the custodian’s part.This could be
interpreted as a strategy for negotiating with the custodian’s office, for in
its editorials it appealed to the custodian that it was his moral duty to help
Muslims because they too were Indian citizens, and prodded the government by asking if it was taking its revenge on Pakistan’s Muslims through
Indian Muslims. “If not,” the editorial stated, “then it should protect the
property of Muslims.”43
On the other hand, Jang, in Karachi, was far more vocal in denouncing
the Indian custodian’s office and its “victimization” of Muslims (Jang was
predictably silent on the custodian’s practices against Hindus in Karachi).
However, while Jang may have exaggerated its portrayal of Muslim persecution, it did record Muslim experiences with evacuee property, particularly as those affected by it started coming to Karachi. For instance, when
Jang raised the alarm that the “Hindustani permit office [staff] are spies
for the Custodian’s Office” it was not inaccurate in its perception of the
permit system’s surveillance component. It stated that certificates that had
been awarded to Muslims for returning from Pakistan to India in August
1949 were cancelled in large numbers by the Indian High Commission,
such that those who had come to Pakistan for purposes of visits only were
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moving people, immovable property
unable to return, and in the meantime their properties were taken by the
custodian. Jang narrated stories of individuals to corroborate its claims,
such as that of a person who went to India’s permit office in Lahore on
August 28, 1949. By the time the man reached Delhi on September 6, his
property there had already been declared “evacuee” and his family had
been removed from the premises by the police.44 Over the next few years,
Jang coined the term “custodian-gardi” to describe the institution’s “merciless behavior towards Muslims,” but its particular concern for Muslim
dispossession as a result of evacuee property laws was partially tied to
the fact that large numbers of Muslims were migrating to Pakistan45 and
this was fueling an important debate, discussed in the next chapter, on
restricting the entry of these Muslims.
The chief commissioner’s files on the growing practice of pagri among
Muslims are quite revealing of the effects of evacuee property not only
on Muslims who owned property but also on those who rented from
Muslim landlords whose properties had been declared evacuee. Pagri, as
explained earlier, was a practice of circumventing urban rent restrictions
under colonial rule, and here became an important means for circumventing restrictions on transfers imposed by evacuee property laws.These
restrictions included obtaining permission of the custodian to sell, transfer, or rent out any property, even to another family member or friend,
and permission from the custodian was often difficult to obtain. Since
the “legal” route was made arduous, the “illegal” system of pagri gained
importance. As the custodian of Delhi noted, in predominantly Muslim
areas the occupant of an evacuee property house would “pass it on” to
another person against payment of pagri.The new occupant paid the pagri
“because he has little to fear of eviction, particularly as present occupants
of evacuee properties are being confirmed and their occupation is not to
be disturbed.”46
The chief commissioner remarked that this form of “illegal gratification” was pervasive among Muslims of the city, particularly when the
custodian began to collect rents on the properties under his jurisdiction,
including rents in arrears. Most Muslims were unable to pay “even in installments the huge amounts of arrears and therefore consider[ed] it more
advisable to quietly surrender the house on payment of illegal gratifications to others, mostly refugees.” This included Muslims in “mixed areas”
who were giving up their houses on pagri, and moving into “Muslim
zones.” The situation in “mixed areas,” the commissioner noted, was “de-
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teriorating and the cases of attempts at forcible occupations during the
past month have increased.”47 If a house became occupied by a “refugee,”
then it became almost impossible for the prior Muslim occupant to reclaim it by “legal” means, and so leaving “voluntarily” with a payment of
pagri would have been an inviting option. The chief commissioner added
that there were many cases in which the people did not want to leave
their houses but did so “on account of ignorance,” for there were “regular
gangs of pugree dealers in different wards and the whole thing goes on like
anything.” Finally, the official comment that this was resulting in Delhi
“losing its secular and human character” captures the growing internal
displacement and ghettoization of Muslims in the city.
In 1952, Al-Jamiat once again urged its readers to pay their rents to
the custodian without waiting for a rent collector to come by. This was
because the “custodian’s strictness” in collecting rent from properties declared evacuee was resulting in “worry” and dispossession. The custodian
had not collected rents in a long time and then was making sudden lumpsum demands which Muslim renters were unable to pay. Al-Jamiat noted
that Jamiat-ul-Ulema’s legal group was looking into this “strictness” but
the paper asked readers to make the rent payments as soon as possible. It
suggested that it was “the wish of the custodian department to overlook
collection for a long period of time and then to make a sudden demand,
forcing the person to be unable to pay and therefore leave his premises.”48
Embracing both propertied and tenant Muslims alike in a place like
old Delhi, where Muslims used to own a significant portion of the houses
passed down over generations, Salim saheb’s recollection of the “strange
sight” at the custodian’s office describes how the institution transformed
the lives of the city’s Muslims:
Taqseem ke ba‘d jahan aur bahut masa‘il paida hue. Is men sab se ziyada
tarakun custodian department ka tha. Taqseem ke ba‘d custodian ka idara
Rehabilitatoin Ministry ne qaim kiya. Aur us ka kam tha ke tamam jane
wale musalman muhajireen-e-Pakistan ki tamam jaedadein zabt kar li. Acquire kar li.Ye kam itne bare pehmane par hua ke jo log Pakistan nahin gae
the aur yahin pe rehaish-gazeer the, un ki jaedadein bhı tamam custodian
ne acquire kar li. Aur ye pareshani is had tak barh gaı ke us men kuch siyasi
jamaton ko hissa lena para. Aur us kı awaz uthani pari. Is zamane men
JUH ke aqabireen aur qaideen bahut mutarib the. Aur un ne ye masla apne
hath men le kar custodian aur sarkar se batcheet karte rahe aur ye yaqeen
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moving people, immovable property
dilate rahe ke ye to Pakistan nahin gae. Ap un ki jaedad ko kaise acquire
kar rahe. Is silsale men woh mukhtalif qasm ke suboot mangte the ke nahin
gae to us ka bhı suboot dejye. Aur us zamane men us ka suboot mohaya
karna ye dushwar gazeer marahil tha. Natıje men das sal se le kar bees sal
tak lag gae case men. Aur logon ne bahut mushkil se–jo Pakistan nahin gae
the–apni jaedadein churwaı. Lekin be-shumar properties aj bhı hai jin ka
faisala aj bhı nahin hua.Woh custodian men hain. . . .
Suboot ek to ration card aur dusra ye keh kisı gazetted officer se ap tasdeeq
karae aur aise gawa pesh kıjye jin ko sarkar jantı ho. . . . Kisi ko bhi
nahin chora tha. Kisi ka fesala das sal ba‘d hua. Kisi ka pundra sal, kisi
ka pachees sal . . . jitne bhi ye malik makan the, ye jaedad wale log the.
Subha uth ke nashta kar ke apne custodian ke daftar chale jate the. Sham
ko panch baje ate the. Wahan pe ek mela sa laga rehta tha. Jaise ke Dilli
ke sare musalman custodian ke office men khare hai. Ajeeb manzar hota
tha. Is ki bahut sari misale ke koı kisi ki enquiry hoti hai ya koı poonchney
ata hai ke woh kahan hai. To un se yehi kaha jata tha ke tum custodian
ke daftar chale jaoge to wahi mil jaenge. . . . Ghar men rehte the aur case
larte rehte the . . .
After Partition, as many problems arose, the most difficult was that of
the custodian department. After Partition the institution of the custodian was established by the Ministry of Rehabilition. And its job was
to confiscate the properties of all those Muslims who went to Pakistan as muhajirs. To acquire them. This work was done on such a big
scale that people who had not gone to Pakistan and were living here,
their properties were also acquired by the custodian. And this worry
increased to such an extent that some political parties had to get involved and raise a voice. At this time JUH’s leaders played a role. And
they took up this problem with the custodian and the government
and began talking and making them believe that these people have
not gone to Pakistan, how can you acquire their properties. In this
regard they asked for different kinds of proofs to believe that you have
not gone to Pakistan and this was a very difficult process. As a result
cases took ten years, twenty years. And these people who did not go
to Pakistan had to face great difficulties to get their properties released.
But even today there are many properties for which the decision even
today has not been reached. And are with the custodian. . . .
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[Later in the interview]
Proof, one was a ration card, and the other was affirmation from
a gazetted officer and presenting witnesses which the government
knew . . . no one was left. Some decisions took ten years, some fifteen, some twenty–five . . . all those who were owners of houses,
those with properties.They would get up in the morning, eat breakfast, and go to the custodian’s office. In the evening at five o’clock
they would come back.There would be a mela there. As if all of Delhi’s Muslims were standing at the custodian’s office. It was a strange
sight.There are many examples. If there was an inquiry for someone,
or if someone asked where is he.Then he would be told to go to the
custodian’s office and you can meet him there . . . they would live in
the house and fight the case.
It is here that the disciplinary effect of evacuee property is most evident, for it was not sufficient for Muslims to go to the custodian’s office
and claim that they had not left for Pakistan and that a mistake had been
made on the government’s part. As “evacuees,” they were deemed to have
“migrated” to Pakistan, and the burden of proof lay on them to establish
that they had not gone or did not have any future intention of going to
Pakistan. This process of proving, as Salim saheb put it, was an extraordinarily long one, requiring ration cards, municipal records, and other documents presented to show that they had not gone to Pakistan and were
all the time living in India. To produce “witnesses which the government
knew” meant patrons had to be found within the state bureaucracy to
vouchsafe for their character.
While evacuee property cases joined permit cases to embroil Muslims
in India in a litigious, exhausting process of establishing national identity,
there was a key difference between them. While permit cases were centrally about contesting citizenship and involved deportations, in evacuee
property cases one could “live in the house and fight the case,” be considered a citizen and declared an evacuee at the same time. A legal guide
on evacuee property explained why this was possible. Citing cases, Goyal
noted that the law “does not provide for declaring a person as evacuee. Section 7 provides for declaration of property as evacuee property,
though declaration of its owner as evacuee is implied.” Thus the clause
“leaves or has left” for Pakistan implies “some amount of permanent stay
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moving people, immovable property
or residence outside India but not to the extent of completely abandoning Indian domicile.”49
Nehru noted that “the pressure of the evacuee property laws applies
to almost all Muslims in certain areas of India. They cannot easily dispose
of their properties or carry on trade for fear that the long arm of this law
might hold them down in its grip.” Although in Delhi almost all Muslims
were declared evacuee,50 in other parts of India there were many ways
in which Muslims came to be declared “evacuee.” Often it hinged on an
“informer” to make a case to the custodian’s office, and the burden of
proof to show a complete absence of intention of going to Pakistan fell
on the person.The fact that the “informer” might be a “displaced person”
interested in being allotted the property was not held against the informer. Thus one finds the court case of Aboobaker Abdul Rahman of Bombay, after Tek Chand Dolwani, a “displaced person” from Sind, became an
informer for the Custodian’s Office. Dolwani “informed” the custodian
that Rahman had gone to Pakistan and was therefore an “evacuee,” and
asked that Rahman’s Imperial Cinema be allotted to him.When Rahman
appealed on the grounds that he was a resident of Bombay and had not
migrated to Pakistan, he was declared not to be an “evacuee,” but on the
next day was declared an “intending evacuee.” Rahman had one adult son
in Pakistan, and another adult son and daughter in Bombay when he died
three months later while still contesting the dubious title of “intending
evacuee.”51 Dolwani insisted that the dead man be declared “evacuee” so
that the property could then be allotted to him.52
However, going to Pakistan, including even for a visit, was not the only
crime that could result in one’s being declared “evacuee” or “intending
evacuee.” An informer could describe a person as a “Muslim Leaguer”
and thereby have a basis for the property becoming evacuee. In the case
of Kaiser Saleem of Churiwalan, 53 old Delhi, it was his father who had
migrated to Pakistan and, according to the informer, was a “notorious
Muslim Leaguer.” This resulted in the son’s printing press and bookshop
being declared evacuee property.
Muslims could be “punished” for having gone to Pakistan for a “visit” or
for having familial ties there, but in the case of Hakim Dilbar Hasan Khan54
neither was a reason for being declared evacuee. It is curious that his file
survives from the largely destroyed records of evacuee property for it reveals
how “evacuee” ceased to have anything to do with the specifics of the law
itself. The custodian’s complete juridical authority to decide if someone
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was evacuee or not (the courts could decide other issues, but not this fundamental one) not only allowed for the widest interpretations but was also
used to discipline the participation of Muslims in the public sphere.
Hakim sahib, an unani physician, applied for the restoration of his house,
which had been declared evacuee, arguing that he had never gone to Pakistan.The assistant custodian wrote that he had seen Hakim sahib’s landlord
and ownership deeds, as well as his ration cards, and had also examined
witnesses, all of which verified that the Hakim indeed had not “migrated”
to Pakistan nor acquired any right or benefit in the evacuee property there.
In addition, Randhawa, the deputy commissioner of Delhi, gave Hakim
sahib a testimony of his good character as he acknowledged his help during the Partition violence. Randhawa described the Hakim as “a very sedate and sensible person with a strong common sense and I am grateful to
him for the cooperation he has given.” It was also noted that all of Hakim
sahib’s family, with the exception of one son-in-law, were living in Delhi.
Yet all this was not enough. A CID inquiry revealed that he had been
“a staunch Muslim Leaguer before Partition and delivered a number of
anti-Congress and anti-Hindu speeches.” In addition, he had been arrested on November 11, 1948, for “his prejudicial activities,” though he
was released on the intervention of local Congress and Jamiat workers.
Thus although the Hakim was, by definition of the law, not an “evacuee,”
the Ministry of Rehabilitation decided that it was “not desirable that his
property should be restored to him.”
This decision is evidence of the ways in which questions of loyalty not
only operated at the level of discourse but were also enforced through institutions and practices of the state.This made Muslim participation in public
and political activities extremely cautious and carefully aligned within a
national frame. It became common to include, in petitions and applications,
statements like those given by Abdul Wahid, who was reduced to living in
the Masjid Moulvi Abdul Wahab, a mosque built by his family: he stated
that “throughout the time we have been Congress-minded and have been
helping the Congress.We have never been members of the Muslim League
nor have been taking any part in any other communal section.”55
Joint family properties, not uncommon, were particularly affected by
the Evacuee Interest (Separation) Act of 1951. A professor of Urdu from
UP told me of how his family was physically evicted one afternoon,
when police came to seal their ancestral family home as evacuee property.
He was only a boy at the time, but recalled the day as one of the most
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moving people, immovable property
powerfully inscribed of his childhood memories. The house had been
declared evacuee because it had been passed down as a joint property
for the use of four brothers: his father and three uncles. While two of his
uncles migrated to Pakistan, and according to him received handsome allotments there, they were rendered literally homeless. After being pushed
out of the house with only the clothes on their backs, they waited in the
house of a neighbor until nightfall. With police locks on their door, the
boy climbed through an open window to remove some of his family’s belongings from the house. Although after more than a decade of fighting a
court case the family home was restored to them, the years of dispossession could not be meaningfully mitigated.
The file on the joint family home of Habib Rahimtoola, the Pakistani
high commissioner to the United Kingdom,56 survives in part because it entered the Ministry of External Affairs record. His family property in Bombay
was owned by him and his three brothers, all of whom remained in the city;
his mother and other relatives lived in the actual house.The correspondence
between the custodian and the Ministry of External Affairs repeatedly emphasized the necessity of following the letter of the law, and assurances were
given to Rahimtoola that his mother and other residents of the house would
not be removed from the house. His brothers would have the option of buying his share of the property, and even if auctioned, the new owner would
have to recognize the present residents as his tenants. However, the emphasis
on handling the case “with care,” and following the letter of the law, makes
it obvious that this was consciously not always the case.
For Jang, the Separation Act was a “new storm blowing in India” which
was resulting in more muhajirs. It cried out that in UP, Muslim khandani
or ancestral houses were being divided such that it was leading to Muslim
displacement. It argued that once “evacuee” and “non-evacuee” interests
in a khandani house were separated, the non-evacuee part went to sharnatis, non-Muslim refugees, and the house as a whole became useless for
the Muslims who lived there. In these houses, it argued, there was only
one toilet and one bathroom:
How is it possible for one toilet and one bathroom to be shared
with a West Punjabi Hindu or Sikh family and a traditional Muslim family, when their cultures are so different? How can they live
in one house? Naturally there will be a clash between them and
the government will take the side of the sharnatis against the poor
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Muslims.Thus the Muslims will have to leave the house and sooner
or later will have to migrate to Pakistan. So thus on appearance
the government of UP’s law is completely fair and reasonable, and
respectful of rights. But in practice its consequences and effects can
only be assessed by those who have an experience of such situations
and are familiar with present-day conditions in India.57
The evacuee property laws and the Separation Act also encompassed
family endowments or waqf-e-aulad, and the appointed caretaker or a mutawalli, or one of the mutawallis, was declared “evacuee.”58 There are numerous court cases related to waqf-e-aulad and evacuee property, given that
they required interpretation of rights through codifications of Muslim law.
One example is that of a waqf established in 1913 in UP where two brothers were mutawallis. While Ali Ahmad was appointed a lambardar in 1918
in respect of the property, the younger brother, Ali Asghar, joined military
service, had little interest in the property and then later opted for Pakistan.
As a result the waqf was declared evacuee and its management was taken
over by the custodian. Ali Ahmad, who must have been over fifty-two
years of age at this time and had managed the lands all his adult life, and
may have remained in India because he was tied to the land, lost his livelihood. His appeal to the courts was to simply have the management of the
waqf returned to him; he argued that he would give half the income from
the land to the custodian if only he could be its caretaker.59
From propertied individuals, to tenants, to joint family households, to
caretakers and beneficiaries of endowments, Muslims particularly across
north India had to contend with evacuee property laws, which, as was
widely noted at the time, internally displaced them, economically disenfranchised them, and made it very difficult for them to participate not
only in the economy of the nation, but also in its political life.
evacuee property in karachi
In Karachi, evacuee property laws were not applied until 1948, when the
West Pakistan (Protection of Evacuee Property) Ordinance was passed to
encompass all of West Pakistan.This was because of a perceived absence of
violence in the city.60 Therefore, the Rent Controller’s Office had managed allotments of “abandoned” Hindu homes and businesses to muhajirs
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moving people, immovable property
under the Sind Economic Rehabilitation Ordinance.61 When evacuee
property laws went into effect, the Rent Controller’s Office also undertook the role of the custodian. In Pakistan, as in India, “the administration
of evacuee property was considered an integral part of the rehabilitation
policy of the government of Pakistan and such properties were managed
as part of the rehabilitation scheme of the government.”62
In Pakistan, as I have already mentioned, government records were
difficult to find, in part because no one seemed to remember where
they had gone. With the almost total departure of Hindus from West
Pakistan, there are also no counter-memories and few signs of struggle
left in the city’s muhajir-dominated culture,63 and no political imperative
to question this amnesia. However, the Custodian of Evacuee Property
is widely remembered, but in an unexpected way—it is remembered as
the first site of the nation-state’s corruption. The comment that “evacuee property corruption ki jar hai,” evacuee property was at the root of
corruption in Pakistan, was repeated several times, and stories of usurpation by a few people of such a limited and essential resource as housing
were commonplace.
Corruption as an originary narrative is vastly evocative.Yet there were
material reasons for this memory of corruption. Sindhi Amil Hindus of
Karachi were by and large economically well-off, and thus they “left”
behind valuable properties. In addition, as I discussed earlier, muhajirs
arrived in vastly different material conditions. There were sarmayadar
muhajirs and tabah-o-barbad muhajirs who lined the footpaths of Karachi.
As a result the Rent Controller’s Office was the site of muhajir anger,
frustration, and disappointment with the homeland that they had come
to, and the city came to be dubbed as “Darulkhilafah Pakistan: Karachijahan makan nahin milta [capital Pakistan: Karachi—where you can not
get houses].”64
I want to recover here some traces of the Hindu experience of evacuee
property in the memory and record of corruption. In a Constituent Assembly debate on the amendment of the laws to mirror Indian legislation,
Dr. I. H. Querishi argued that Hindus in Karachi sold their properties
for large amounts of money before they left, given the earlier absence of
evacuee property laws in Karachi, while on the other hand Muslims were
arriving in Pakistan completely dispossessed. This view is important for it
gave legitimacy not just to the legal, but also the extralegal dispossession
of Hindus in Karachi.
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I had heard of Maulana Abdul Quddus Bihari from a number of divided families I had spoken with. But it was a young assistant at the Jang
office, who was taking great interest in my research, who was emphatic
that I interview Maulana Bihari’s family (for he had already died). “Un
ke bare khidmat hai, un ne muhajiron ke liye bahut kuch kiya hai [His services
are many, he did a lot for muhajirs],” was how he described him to me.
The fact that Bihari has been passed down in memory as a muhajir hero
is particularly significant.
However, when I began to encounter him in record, I was taken aback
to find that Bihari’s fame lay largely in “uncovering” properties of Hindus
who had “left” and having them declared evacuee. But he was more than
just an “informer” for the Rent Controller’s Office. What distinguished
him was that he represented himself as a dynamic and honest champion
of national interests, and this allowed him to supersede the authority of
the rent controller, which he represented as a weak, ineffectual, and corrupt institution.
As early as 1947, he entered police records for removing the lock from
a Hindu shop near Boulton Market and replacing it with his own. This
was, not surprisingly, recorded as having “caused a slight panic among the
Hindus of the locality.”65 It is evident that his actions were considered as
“aggression” by some and “initiative” by others, but it is his “initiative” that
is remembered. Later, he took “initiative” in taking Hindus to court to have
properties recognized as evacuee.66 His fame grew in particular with the
Palace Hotel court case he initiated, and which was covered in Jang as a saga
on a regular basis for the length of the court case. Minute developments in
the case were reported (and presumably read with avid interest).67
The Palace Hotel was owned by a Hindu and had a Hindu manager,
and Bihari “exposed” the fact that the earnings of the hotel were “not in
Pakistan”: its shareholders had not received any money, nor were there
any funds in its Karachi bank account. Given that it would take more than
passing interest to find out such financial details, there must have been
some questions raised as to his intentions in undertaking such a task. He
thus published his mission statement as a letter to the Jang:
This incident is entirely sad . . . [T]he non-Muslim manager came
under suspicion when not a cent of such a big hotel’s earnings of the
last five years was in Pakistan, and that instead the hotel is indebted
to the bank. I don’t know what our special police and income tax
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moving people, immovable property
people are doing, where they have been sleeping. About this incident
it is important to tell that in 1949 since the department of the custodian has come into place, and since I have struggled to expose the
loot and lies and concealments of evacuees, at the same time I have
kept the government informed in writing that whatever property I
get deemed evacuee, I will not put in a request for its allotment.Thus,
with thanks to God, up to now I have not taken an allotment of any
evacuee property nor do I plan to. Abdul Quddus Bihari.68
Over the course of the trial, which ran for months, Bihari used this
platform to reprimand the government for their apparently lenient views
on taking over evacuee property. He demanded that the government apply the laws to their fullest, and that a full-time custodian (and not the
rent controller, who had other duties) be appointed who could keep an
“updated list” of all evacuee property. Bihari insisted that Hindus who
had sent their wives and children to India had bribed officers in the Rent
Controller’s Office in order to hold on to their properties, and he appealed not only to lawyers but to people in general to take the initiative
against them.69
Extralegality, legality, and illegality were not unique to the practices
centered on the Rent Controller’s Office, but it is how power and discourse get articulated that produces a notion of corruption. Bihari was
a hero, while the Rent Controller’s Office was corrupt. However, it was
considered corrupt not because of its treatment of Hindus.This is evident
in a Constituent Assembly debate in which Seth Sukhdev narrated an incident involving “Officers of the Custodian” who came to the residential
premises of Seth Bhagwanlal Ranchordas.70 Ranchordas was occupying
a part of his own building while tenants occupied the rest. Ranchordas
and the tenants were all ordered to leave the premises within half an hour
and were allowed only to remove some of their bedding, clothes, and
cooking utensils. After sealing the building, the assistant custodian had
moved into a part of the building with his own family. Dr I. H. Querishi
replied to Sukhdev’s concern over the abuse of the custodian’s power by
pointing out that on appeal to the custodian, the actions of the assistant
custodian had been declared illegal.The law had been enforced. However,
Querishi added that a Mr. Acharya, an advocate who was a single tenant
in the building, of his “free will” allowed the assistant custodian, who had
a large family, to move into his home.This was not considered corruption,
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although, needless to say, it is questionable how “free” Mr. Acharya was to
make such an offer.
Corruption in the Rent Controller’s Office was also pointed out when
a scheme for “rationing” houses was proposed by the Ministry of Rehabilitation to deal with the city’s housing crisis. The scheme came under
the guise of the Sind Rent Restriction (Amendment) Bill, and as the
then minister of rehabilitation, Khwaja Shahabuddin told the Constituent Assembly, “[i]t has been found that there are persons who are staying
here alone but occupying a very large accommodation” and this bill was
meant to give the rent controller “the necessary authority to utilize the
space.”71 The bill envisioned single occupants of homes, people such as
Mr. Acharya, but not only Mr. Acharya, sharing with refugee families by
dividing those houses up between several families.
Kamini Kumar Datta immediately raised the question of whether this
legislation was meant to single out Hindus, and Shahabuddin replied that
although certain buildings in the city were reserved for “permanent residence” of the city’s Hindus, most of these permanent residents had gone
and only one or two people were living, and so a “large space” was unoccupied. Shahabuddin argued that “we are pressed for accommodation, but
should these rooms and that accommodation, although it is not occupied
by Hindus, be allowed to remain vacant? Muslims as untouchables should
not be allowed to occupy them and have a shelter?”
It was pointed out in the course of the debate on the bill that the
proposal was meant to conceal the corruption of the Rent Controller’s
Office since it had allotted large properties to small families with money,
leaving others still homeless. However, resistance to this scheme came
out of practical concerns, as well as fears of a different kind of corruption. Khuhro pointed out that this was a “drastic measure”: “supposing
there is a flat consisting of three rooms and the rent controller decides
that the inhabitants of that flat, who may be ten or twelve, should live in
two rooms and one room should be spared for some other family. It will
be most inconvenient for the people who will be occupying that flat, because in most of these flats and tenements here there is only one kitchen
and one bathroom. How will these people with their families be able to
share these bathrooms and kitchens?”
Hashim Gazder72 was alarmed that this scheme meant “purdah-nashin”
Muslim women would have to live alongside “na-mahram” men.73 Gazder
found an analogy in the Second World War, arguing that although in
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moving people, immovable property
war-bombed London the government forced people to take in families
through a system of billetting, this resulted in thousands of “bastards.”
Governments in Europe were forced to make laws for these “war babies
which no one wanted.” Outraged, he argued that such a scheme went
against “the sentiment of Muslims” and that “Muslim society is not prepared to go to this depth of degradation.”
Despite Gazder’s sentiments, the bill was passed and the scheme was
experimented with, although in a limited way.74 Initially, according to
Jang, it was received with optimism by muhajirs, largely because it was
promoted by the administrator of Karachi, Syed Hashim Reza,75 who
was highly respected amongst them. He announced that according to
the scheme a three-room apartment would be required to accommodate
twelve people. Wherever there were fewer people in an apartment, they
would have to take in more people, since the government was not in a
position to undertake any large building scheme. The Jamiat-ul-Muhajireen supported what it dubbed the “Hashim Reza Scheme,” for it was
viewed as a check on the corruption of the Rent Controller’s Office in
allotting houses in excess of people’s needs.76 However, eventually the
scheme was denounced as creating “murghi-khanas” or chicken pens.
In Karachi, although the custodian’s task was taken over by the Rent
Controller’s Office, a separate rehabilitation commissioner was appointed
who was assigned the task of making allotments. This post went to the
administrator of Karachi, and therefore Hashim Reza was the rehabilitation commissioner until 1952, when he left both posts.77 Figure 4.4 is an
example of the allotment notices that appeared on a regular basis in the
Jang newspaper.
In his autobiography he writes that, overwhelmed by the responsibility of making allotments, he established a Rehabilitation Board to make
collective decisions. Originally from Lucknow, and particularly fond of
Urdu poetry, he narrates their decision-making with charm and humor.
He writes that it was the decision of the board to allot businesses to those
who used to carry on that business in India:
figure 4.4 (opposite page) Notice of allotments made by the Rehabilitation Board of
evacuee property, Jang, January 15, 1950. It lists names of persons and the address of the
property that has been allotted to them.
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moving people, immovable property
I recall the allotment of an evacuee shop of hats and caps situated
in Saddar. There were 1,000 applicants for this shop, each claiming
to have abandoned shops containing thousands of hats and caps in
places like Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras. The claim of one of the
applicants was very modest. He was a refugee from Delhi. In his application he stated that he owned a small shop in Delhi which was
located on a small street. The number of hats and caps in his shop
was less than a hundred. When the mass killings of the Muslims of
Delhi took place after Partition . . . he was advised by his friends
to move to the Purana Qila and go to Pakistan. He argued that the
Hindu and Sikh militants had looted big shops; his own shop was
too insignificant to attract anyone’s attention. And yet when he was
driven away from his shop at the point of sword, he had to migrate
to Pakistan and wended his way to Karachi. At the end of his application, he quoted a verse of Mirza Ghalib:
Hum kahan ke dana the, kis hunar men yakta the
Besabab hua Ghalib dushman asman apna.
Wisdom I possessed not, nor skilled was I
For no reason, inimical became the sky.
The members of the Rehabilitation Board were unanimous in allotting the shop to the Delhi refugee, much to the disappointment of the
remaining applicants who complained to the press that the allotment had
been made not on merits but on Mirza Ghalib’s verse! He added that as
a result they began to receive more and more poetical petitions, such that
he had to issue a press note that applicants should not incur double fees
of both petition writers and poets.78
Yet as charming as Reza’s account is of the process by which the
registration of claims as “displaced persons” was formalized, the accounts
narrated to me were of a far different nature. Abida apa explained to me
that on registering a claim of property left behind in India, and presenting deeds or other proofs showing the value of that property, “units”
were issued to the “displaced person.” Further evacuee properties were
auctioned, and a “displaced person” could bid with the “units” that they
had for an equivalent property. However, she remarked that the process
was so full of corruption that “an ordinary person” like herself had no
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157
hope of obtaining a property by such means. Therefore she sold her
“units” on the black market. There were people who had two “units”
but wanted to get a property that was worth four or six “units,” and did
so by buying the extra “units” from someone like her. Furthermore, she
argued that you had to have “contacts” to actually get a property and
take possession of it.
Abida apa’s experience was repeated to me by many other people, but
no one admitted having obtained an evacuee property allotment. (For
instance, Salim saheb in Delhi had told me that his sisters who went to
Karachi “got claims” for the property that they left behind. But when I
interviewed them in Karachi, they stated that they did not.) Corruption
was always elsewhere. Also, the large number of court cases on evacuee
property were not claims by Hindus whose properties had been declared
evacuee, but rather were mostly competing claims of “displaced persons”
requiring adjudication. There were also competing claims made by Sindhi and other Muslim ansar residents of Karachi on evacuee property
as well. Thus a Jang editorial argued that 5 percent of evacuee property
should be given to “ansar brothers” but the rest to muhajirs only. The
paper complained:
Allotments have been made such that there are those who are
being shunted around, and no one asks them, and others who are
occupying large properties that exceed their needs. This corruption
in evacuee property must stop. After all, it is such a shameful and
sad state of affairs that those people who in India owned properties
worth lakhs, in Pakistan are being shunted around . . . [I]n opposition there are those gentlemen who have gotten that which far
exceeds their rights and today are living like nawabs.79
It is clear that through displacement and evacuee property the social
order for muhajirs changed, and old relationships between class, descent,
and property became disordered. This sense of disorder, that there were
those who were living like nawabs who had no cultural or historical
entitlement to do so, is also why evacuee property came to be identified
with corruption, a symbol of moral disorder. Moreover, as Muslims from
India, muhajirs, continued to come to Pakistan, as I discuss in the next
chapter, the government argued they were coming with greed for allotments, further adding to anxieties about corruption.80
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Imagined Limits, Unimaginable Nations
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5. Passports and Boundaries
Our country is mapped by abandoned highways . . .
The future shriveled to this one place.1
I
f the permit system was meant to bring closure to Partition’s
displacements, it was not an effective measure for the Pakistani state. The
discursive claim of being a Muslim homeland meant that when an “illegal”
border crossing emerged in the Sind desert, at Khokrapar, and thousands
of Muslims from India, particularly from UP, began to pour through it, the
state was unable to acquire the legitimacy to seal it.Thus, just as the permit
system was instituted by the Indian government to stem the return of north
Indian Muslims back to their homes, the passport system was introduced
between the two countries in 1952 at the Pakistan government’s insistence,
to curtail the “flood” of UP Muslims into the proclaimed homeland.
It had been possible to introduce permits without much debate in
Pakistan since they were perceived to be an Indian-initiated restriction.
After the permits came into place, people continued to hope that the
permit system across the western border would be either brought to an
end or that its extraordinary restrictions would be eased. Instead permits
were replaced by passports, a technology that was the introduced on both
the eastern and the western frontier with India. In this chapter I examine
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imagined limits, unimaginable nations
the debate spawned by Khokrapar over restricting the entry of Muslims
from India that led to the shift from permits to passports.
From the perspective of the present and its ubiquitous use of passports,
it would seem that the passport system would be a more familiar technology than that of permits, given its antecedent in the British Indian passport. However, an ordinary Indian legal guide, Law of Foreigners, Citizenship,
and Passports, noted that the term passport emerged in an English statute
in 1548 as a license given by a military authority to a soldier on furlough.
It noted that its alignment with “nationality” emerged in the nineteenth
century although passports as a rule were not required for crossing a frontier. “Only since the First World War has the passport system in its modern
sense been introduced in most countries, i.e., the system whereby aliens
who wish to enter a foreign territory are required to produce a passport
issued by the authorities of their country of nationality.”2
The passport has a history as a travel document, but shifted from being a travel document, a means to control movement, to also becoming a
certificate of citizenship, a means to establish state-bound national identity, and this shift needs to be located rather than presumed. The British Indian passport not only had extremely limited usage, its carrier was
marked as a subject of the colonial state. Thus the India-Pakistan passport
emerged in important ways as a new kind of document, and was probably
the first of this technology to be widely used in the region. Its history, on
the coattails of its predecessor, the permit, suggests an uneasy relationship
between controlling movement and determining citizenship in the making of a post-Partition national order. It required declaring territory of
the “other” state as “foreign” and distinguishing between “citizens” and
“aliens.” It is therefore not incidental that it was as late as the Passports
Act of 1967 in India when the status of passports was made clear, as both
an “essential political document” for “safe travel” but also “an aid in establishing citizenship” and “evidence of the holder’s nationality,” thus securing a relationship between travel, citizenship, and national belonging.3
The indeterminate relationship between passports and citizenship in
fixing national belonging in the subcontinent’s history is evident in this
excerpt from my interview with Salim saheb:
Main gaya tha [Karachi] bawan, trepan men. Do sal raha hun Pakistan.To
wahan par sab ke pas achhe flat the. Achhe makan the. Aur baqi Quaide-Azam ke mazar ke pas jhonpriyan pari huı thı. Bahut tadad men. . . .
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Passports and Boundaries
163
behnon ke pas gaya tha. Main ne socha ke main wahan reh jaun. Is liye
yahan hum rehte the. Ek nafsiyati masla bhi hai. Walid bahut sakht the.
Na kahi bahir jane dete the. Na ghumne. Na kisi ke sath ja sakte the.Wahan jo hum ko azadi mili.To permit wormit tha.To passport banaya. D.ehd
do sal bad walid zabardasti, hamare walid le kar ae the. Agar main wahi
reh jata to goli mar di jati. Congressi hone ki wajah se bahut tane milte the.
Ye muhajir tehrik werik chali na us men kuch na kuch hissa leta. Mar diya
jata. Wapas ane ke bad do sal key bad Pakistani passport cancel hua. Do
teen char sal ke bad. Main Pakistani passport se wapas aya. . . .
I went [to Karachi] in ’52, ’53. I have stayed two years in Pakistan.There
everyone had good flats, good houses. And the rest were in shanties
around Quaid-e-Azam’s tomb. In large numbers . . . I went to my sisters. I thought I would stay on there. Because here we lived.There was
also a psychological problem. Father was very strict. He didn’t allow
one to go anywhere, not to visit any place, not to meet anyone.There I
got freedom.There was a permit wermit. I then made a passport. After
one and a half or two years father forcefully, father brought me back.
If I had stayed on there I would have been shot. I used to get chastised
for being a Congressite.This muhajir movement wovement that started,
I would have taken part in it. Would have been killed. After coming
back, after two years the Pakistani passport was cancelled.After three or
four years, I had returned on a Pakistani passport.
In my second interview with him, several months later on another visit
to Delhi, when I specifically asked Salim saheb about his stay in Pakistan,
he denied ever having gone to Pakistan.When I discussed this denial with
a friend who lived in Salim saheb’s mohalla, she said that she had heard
that Salim saheb had been in love with a girl who had migrated with
her family to Pakistan. Moreover, this woman had come to visit Delhi
recently and her behavior, for she had become a “madame” and a “fashionable type,” had disgusted him. She conjectured that Salim saheb might
have gone to Pakistan in his youth to pursue his “love-interest,” but now
wanted to distance himself from this past.
During my interviews with Salim saheb, his wife had always been present.This piece of “gossip” reminded me of a discussion I had had with them
of cross-border marriages. It was his view that there were still cross-border
marriages, but in most cases the men came from Pakistan to look for girls
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imagined limits, unimaginable nations
here.This is what Salim saheb had to say: “Ek bat hai. Pakistani Hindustan ki
larkiyan ziyada pasand karte hai. Is liye wahan ki larki itni taraqi kar gaı hai, itni
fashion parast ho gaı hai, woh qabo men nahin arahi hai.Woh qabo men nahin rahi
hai shohar ki. [Pakistani (men) prefer girls from India. This is because girls
have progressed/modernized so much there, have become so fashionable,
that they cannot be controlled. The husbands cannot control them.]”
I make this connection between gossip about Salim saheb and Salim
saheb’s opinion of Pakistani women from a conversation on cross-border
marriages, not at all to propose the truth of the gossip4 but rather to draw
out the consanguineous and affinal imaginaries which functioned across
Karachi and Delhi, which made Indian Muslim/muhajir a fluid identity
and one in which “citizen” and “alien” had to be constituted.
Salim saheb went to Pakistan as a youth, for he had sisters who lived
there. He wanted to live in Karachi because his sisters seemed to live well
there and he had an authoritarian father here in Delhi. For the short
time he was there he was a muhajir, but his sense of community with
that identity was such that decades later he could speak of the Muhajir
Qaumi Movement as if he would have been its member, although he had
to return and was an Indian Muslim again. He may or may not have gone
to Pakistan in pursuit of a beloved, and may have returned because his
feelings about her changed or she did not return his feelings. He went
on a permit from Delhi to Karachi, but returned to Delhi on a Pakistani
passport, which was later “cancelled.” His speech and silence on his visit
to Pakistan could have been produced by personal disenchantment or
political process, but it was constituted by an array of emotional ties that
crossed boundaries of new nations, and a sense of danger that came to be
constructed around those ties in the emerging national order.
In this chapter I examine the debates that led to the shift from permits
to passports.
to dam the deluge
A “Selab-e-Nu,” or Noah’s Deluge,5 began to animate public debate in
Pakistan soon after the discordant Karachi Agreement on evacuee property in 1949. Numbers were once again extremely powerful in shaping
the perception that a flood of Muslim refugees from UP were pouring
into Pakistan over Khokrapar, and I include my tabulation (table 5.1) of
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table 5.1 Enumerating the Deluge
Source
Date
Khwaja Shahabuddin
Feb. 23, 1949
in Constituent Assembly
UKHC to CRO1
March 12–18, 1950
Constituent Assembly
March 29, 1950
Jang
April 16, 1950
UKHC to CRO2
April 16–May 6, 1950
Dr. I.H. Querishi in Jang
May 6, 1950
Constituent Assembly
Sept. 30, 1950
Dr. I.H. Querishi in Jang
Nov. 25, 1950
Selab-e-Nu,
May 20, 1951
“Noah’s Deluge,” Jang
Karachi administration
July 2, 1951
in Jang
Constituent Assembly
Nov. 20, 1951
Administrator of Karachi
Jan. 13, 1952
in Jang
Radio Pakistan in Al-Jamiat July 20, 1952
Jang
Sept. 18, 1952
Jang
Oct. 17, 1952
Jang
Dec. 4, 1952
Constituent Assembly
March 12, 1953
Constituent Assembly
Sept. 24, 1953
People coming through
Khokrapar
5,000 every month
4,500 in three weeks
111,615 in previous
six months
5,000 in 24 hours
3,000–4,000 every day
4,000 every day
79,762 in six months prior
to the Nehru-Liaqat Pact
3 lakhs, 19,000 since NehruLiaqat Pact
25,000 in two months
5,000 every month
118,809 in Jan.–Sept. 1951
5,000–10,000
13,206 since Ramazan
15,000 in Aug. 1–
Sept. 15, 1952
6,000 in first week of
Oct. 1952
1,788 in Nov. 1952
441, 721 “illegal entries”
since 1948, introduction of
permit system
27,726 “illegal entries”
Oct. 18, 1952–Sept. 13, 1953
1. United Kingdom High Commission to Commonwealth Relations Office, March 12–18,
1950, IOR L/P&J/5/331.
2. United Kingdom High Commission to Commonwealth Relations Office, April 16–May 6,
1950, IOR L/P&J/5/331/22300/1949.
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imagined limits, unimaginable nations
the repeated enumerations that fed this swelling discussion on Muslims in
India and Pakistan’s relationship to them.
While the Pakistan government limited the issue of permits to Karachi
to restrict the entry of Muslim refugees from India, those who had been
denied permits or could not wait for one, or did not want to bother with
obtaining one, entered Sind through Khokrapar.6 While the Indian government policed this crossing so that entry from Pakistan into India was not
possible through Khokrapar, on the Pakistani side an array of semi-official
and unofficial services provided for the Muslim refugees. This included
camel rides by local villagers to cross forty miles of desert from the noman’s-land to reception camps, as well as a train service from Khokrapar to
cities in Sind.This turned the flow of refugees into what would once again
be called “one-way traffic,” and much of the debate in Pakistan centered
on whether the Pakistani government could legitimately close this border
crossing by policing or arresting Muslim refugees from India.
In the early months of 1950, this “flow” was perceived to have increased
dramatically, as a result of the combined effects of evacuee property laws
and of “communal disturbances” in UP. This increase in flow of refugees
into West Pakistan coalesced with “disturbances” in divided Bengal and
Assam, and the displacement of thousands across the eastern frontier.7 Divided Bengal, as we have seen, was always considered exceptional because
religious minorities on both sides of the eastern frontier were seen to balance each other, albeit precariously. Therefore permits and evacuee property laws were not applied in this region. However, now the seemingly
large-scale movement of people across this eastern border alarmed both
governments. In order to avert the kind of massive displacements that
had taken place earlier in divided Punjab, the two governments forged an
agreement on April 8, 1950, called the Nehru-Liaqat Pact.
The Nehru-Liaqat Pact, also referred to as the Delhi Accords, was a
landmark agreement, even though it was largely an attempt to reassure
religious minorities on both sides of Bengal and reverse displacements
there. The agreement was broadly for the protection of minorities as a
whole, and therefore encompassed all of India and Pakistan. It assured
minorities of “freedom of movement” as well as “complete equality of
citizenship” and “equal opportunity” to participate in public life, hold
political office, and serve in their country’s civil and armed forces, and
was to be enshrined in the constitutions that were being drafted by the
two states.
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167
After this agreement, Liaqat made a presentation to the Constituent
Assembly on April 10, 1950, in which he pointed out aspects of the agreement to allow for those displaced across divided Bengal to return to their
homes. In addition to assurances of “freedom of movement,” he noted that
those who returned before December 31 to their homes would not only
have their properties restored to them, but would also be rehabilitated by
the two states. This meant that, unlike the displaced across the west, “nonMuslim refugees” would be included in “rehabilitation” in East Pakistan,
and “Muslim refugees” in West Bengal. As a result, after the Nehru-Liaqat
Pact it appears that most of the displaced returned to their homes.8
Although the Indian constitution was unambiguous about consecrating “equal citizenship,” this was not the case with the Objectives Resolution that had been passed earlier as a framework for the Pakistani constitution. It stated that it would ensure “principles of democracy, freedom,
equality, tolerance, and social justice as enunciated by Islam,” leaving open
what the Islamic interpretation would be.9 Liaqat, after signing the Delhi
agreement, attempted to quell anxieties around “equal citizenship” in the
Pakistani state when he stated that “some fears have been expressed from
time to time by those who have an imperfect understanding of the concept of an Islamic state that such a state will be a theocratic state and that
it may not be guided in its policy by principles of equal status, rights,
and citizenship in respect of the minorities who reside in it. Such fears
are entirely baseless.” Although Liaqat was apparently upholding Jinnah’s
position of August 11, 1947, on equal citizenship, the varying contending
positions on what the role of Islam should be in the new state made his
reassurance tentative at best.10
The effects of the Nehru-Liaqat Pact on the eastern frontier is still in
need of research. Although it seems that large numbers of the displaced
there returned to their homes, the introduction of the passport system
two years later, the first restrictions on movement across that border, was
a reversal of the agreed “freedom of movement” in the Nehru-Liaqat Pact
and led to a substantial exodus of Hindus from East Pakistan.
However, muhajir aspirations in West Pakistan around the pact were of a
different order, and this is suggested by a satiric dramatization of the meeting of the two prime ministers by the poet Rais Amrohi. Below is an excerpt from this dramatization as it appeared in Jang.The stage opened onto
the Government House in Delhi, where after warm greetings and witty
poetic exchanges, Nehru told Liaqat to come to the “real problem”:
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liaqat: Asal masla ye hai ke donon mulkon men aqliyaton ko hifazat
ka mukamal yaqeen dilaya jae aur jis tarha ap barabar ye aillan karte
rehte hain ke mashriqi Pakistan ki aqliyaton ki hifazat ki zimedari
Bharat par hai. Is qism ke aillan ko khatm kiya jae aur ye tae kiya
ja’e ke har mulk ki aqliyat sirf usi mulk ki shehri hai. Kisi dosre mulk
ko haq nahin hai ke woh us ke mu’amalat men khwa-ma-khwa tang
arata phere.
rajendra prasad: Magar bhai, ye kyon kar ho sakta hai ke hum porbi
Bengal ke abhage hinduon ko bhul jae. Kiya woh Bharat ke shareer aur
roh ka ek tukra nahin, jise zabardasti kat kar alag kar diya hai.
liaqat: Aur agar Pakistan bhi Bharat ke char crore muslaman ka sarparst
ban kar har moqeh par apke mu’amalaat ki baz parst karta rahe to ap
ko shikayat to na ho gi. Kiya Bharat ke musalman hamare bhai nahin
hain, kiya un se hamara jisam aur roh ka rishta nahin hai? Yaqeen
kijiye ke porbi Bengal ki aqliyat se ap ko jo dilchaspı hai main us ke
insanı pehlu ki qadr karta hun. Main khud isı dard men mubtala hun jo
doctor sahib ap ko mubtala-e-gam kiye hue hai. Main khud ek muhajir
hun aur mujhe malum hai. . . .
liaqat: The real problem is to make the minorities in both countries believe in their complete protection. But the way you keep
announcing that minorities in East Pakistan are the responsibility
of India: this kind of announcement must come to an end and it
should be decided that every country’s minorities are citizens of
that country. No other government has the right to unnecessarily interfere in their matters.
rajendra prasad: But my dear brother, how can this be that we
forget the entire Hindu population of East Bengal? Are they not
part of the single body and spirit of India that has been by force
cut and separated.
liaqat: And if Pakistan too becomes the caretaker of the 4 crore
Muslims in India and interferes then will you not complain? Are
the Muslims of India not our brothers also? Don’t we also have
a relationship of the body and spirit with them? Believe me,
the interest you have with East Bengal’s Hindus, I appreciate its
humanity. I too am dealing with the same pain that the Doctor
sahib has. I am myself a muhajir. . . .11
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From a muhajir perspective, the “real problem” was not just to reassure
religious minorities, but also to resolve the very question of where they
belonged. Amrohi portrayed the Indian state’s relationship to Hindu and
Sikhs in Pakistan as part of the “body and spirit” of the Indian nation, while
Liaqat, representing the Pakistani state’s position, desired a severance of this
relationship by declaring them citizens of the Pakistani state and therefore
its responsibility. At the heart of this severing lay the critical question of
Pakistan’s relationship to the 4 crore Muslims that remained in India.
If they were indeed to be regarded as part of the “body and spirit” of
Pakistan, could the Pakistani state legitimately restrict their entry? The
Nehru-Liaqat Pact provided the Pakistani state with an agreement which
appeared to secure Muslim rights within India, and could be used to argue that as a result there was no imperative for Muslim flight from India
to Pakistan.
As part of the agreement, the Indian government agreed to take back,
in addition to the Muslims displaced in the east, Muslims from UP who
had left for Pakistan between February 1 and May 31, 1950, and restore
their properties to them. We have seen how the restoration of properties
as part of the Nehru-Liaqat Pact was included in the Indian government’s
1960s foreign relations brochure on evacuee property. As a result of this
promise, some 95,000 out of an enumerated 135,000 Muslims that had
come to West Pakistan in that specified period registered to return to
their homes in India. A year later, on June 15, 1951, Liaqat Ali Khan personally saw off 1,500 muhajirs at the train station who were returning to
their homes in UP.
However, all those who registered in West Pakistan to return home
were not allowed back by the Indian government, for this was a time when
evacuee property laws were being expanded with the introduction of the
“intending evacuee” clause, and the Mahada-e-Dilli was largely meant to
reverse displacements across West Bengal and East Pakistan. It seems that
only about 23,000 people were able to return out of the 95,000 that had
registered to do so. One newspaper article noted that as a result “thousands
of those who had registered for repatriation are in a state of suspense; they
cannot be rehabilitated in Pakistan nor has it been possible to send them
back to India due to the dilatory methods of the Government of India.”12
However, the Nehru-Liaqat Pact gave the Pakistani government a
basis for threatening to close the Khokrapar crossing and insist that all
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movement between India and West Pakistan be regulated by permits
only. To make the threat of closing this desert crossing effective, the
government announced that all services functioning at this border post
would be stopped after May 1950.13
However, as we shall see, the Nehru-Liaqat Pact did not produce the
kind of closure that the Pakistani government may have hoped for, as muhajir opinion on restricting the entry of Muslims from India was so strong
that the government was unable to actually police or criminalize those
who continued to enter “illegally” via Khokrapar.
karachi is “full”
A refugee census carried out in Karachi in May 1948 had shown that
there were some 470,000 Muslim refugees in the city. It was against this
statistical backdrop that Khwaja Shahabuddin, then minister of refugees
and rehabilitation, noted with alarm that 5,000 refugees were coming every month through the Khokrapar crossing, and that most of them were
heading to Karachi. The Khokrapar refugees thus came to immediately
represent a rehabilitation crisis, adding to the already difficult housing
problem in the city. Shahabuddin announced that “[i]n regard to prevention of further influx into Karachi, the public has been warned through
the press and over the radio that Karachi can accommodate no more
Muslim refugees.”14
The notion that Karachi was “full” had been expressed by Sindhi leaders since 1947, but their cries had been dismissed as mere provincialism
and contrary to the spirit of the nation. In 1948, the city was separated
from the province of Sind and made into a centrally administered area.
This shift was contested by Sindhi politicians, but it also meant that muhajirs now had greater power in the city’s government.15 It was muhajir Muslim League leaders in the central government, such as Chaudry
Khaliquzzaman and Khwaja Shahabuddin, who were making these public
statements, and this notion of “full” was tied to economics of rehabilitation.16 By 1950, Dr I.H. Querishi, the minister of rehabilitation and also
a muhajir, stated after touring the Khokrapar border that every day 4,000
muhajirs were coming and that “this is making the problem of rehabilitating the existing refugees very difficult.” The administrator of Karachi,
Hashim Reza, who commanded considerable respect among the muha-
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jirs, similarly argued that because of new arrivals rehabilitation had become difficult, for as soon as the footpaths of Karachi were emptied, more
homeless refugees arrived to fill them up.17
These repeated announcements that “Karachi is full” were meant to
dissuade Muslims in India from coming, as well as encourage those that
had to return. The custodian’s machinations in India were considered a
major reason for the ongoing exodus, and it was believed that the dispossessed Muslims were coming to get allotted properties in Karachi as
“displaced persons.” Therefore the government on one hand argued that
such announcements were necessary to disillusion those who were coming and thus stem this flow. On the other hand, particularly after the
Nehru-Liaqat Pact, government officials began to announce that because
Karachi was already overcrowded, refugees in the city should return to
their homes in India. Chaudry Khaliquzzaman described the coming of
refugees through Khokrapar as unacceptable “one-way traffic,” paralleling
the Indian rhetoric prior to the permit system, and also suggested that
these Muslims should return to India. It was this discourse of rehabilitation that formed the context for the thousands who registered to return
after the Nehru-Liaqat Pact.18
However, this official discourse was met with an angry muhajir response,
and editorials and articles in Jang criticized the government’s position on
many accounts. One article challenged the very notion that rehabilitation
efforts of the government were being adversely affected by the arrival of
refugees, for the government had hardly done much to begin with:
. . . so eleven lakh Muslims have come. [But] the question is for
their rehabilitation, how many houses has the government built,
how many quarters has it built? Or have they settled themselves? So
for the government to say that the houses are finished or the shops
are finished, what has the government done to talk like this? [It has
provided] no houses, no shops, no employment.19
In addition, the notion that Muslims were coming from India for material gain alone incensed muhajir sensibilities. This was countered with
the view that muhajirs were coming in “tabah halat,” looted and destitute
to Pakistan, and that the discrimination against them in India was so acute
that it had forced them to leave their households and come with hope
for better business and employment opportunities in Pakistan.20 Jang used
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the fact that 95,000 had registered to return to India after the NehruLiaqat Pact to make the point that “people don’t just come in the hope of
getting allotted a factory, bungalow, or large house, for material gain, but
because the conditions are truly bad in India, and want to return there
when conditions improve there.”21
This charge was made repeatedly against muhajirs, that their hearts are
in India but have come to earn money in Pakistan. As one person in Jang
responded: “Subhanallah! Is sangdil ko kon batae ke ye ruppe kamane ane wale
apne pundra lakh azizon ko Bharat men sarzameen par qurban karke aur croron
ki jaedadain dushmanon ko de kar ae hain [In God’s name, who will tell the
heartless that the money-earning muhajirs have sacrificed 15 lakh kin and
given crores worth properties to the enemy].”22
The government’s suggestion that muhajirs should return to their
homes in India after the Nehru-Liaqat Pact, because conditions there had
improved, was also attacked. Soon after Liaqat sent off a trainload of muhajirs, Jang reported that those who had gone back had been treated so badly
that they were now thinking of returning to Pakistan again. Communal
riots, it argued, were the Indian government’s weapon for discouraging
the return of Muslims, and the Pakistani government should not endanger their lives by encouraging their return.23
The trope of sacrifice was perhaps the most important, for as I have
argued earlier, it emerged to claim an entitlement to Pakistan amid earlier
attempts to limit the numbers of muhajirs coming to Karachi. Here it was
once again used to denounce government attempts to restrict the entry
of north Indian Muslims and to encourage the return of refugees. As
one article in Jang stated, “in the making of Pakistan (ta‘meer-e-Pakistan)
the muhajirs of UP have played the largest role and made the most sacrifices (qurbani), and offered the most services. It is sad that after obtaining
Pakistan there is no place for them in the world of Pakistan (Pakistani
duniya).”24 Another article argued that because UP Muslims had a hand in
the making of Pakistan they were now being told to go away to Pakistan,
and therefore the existence of Pakistan and the discrimination they faced
in India were inextricably tied.25 As a result, the argument was repeatedly
made that muhajirs had the most right to Pakistan:
Pakistan par sab se ziyada haq muhajireen hı ka hai kyon keh un ki qurbaniyon ki badaulat Pakistan ‘alam-e-wujood men aya . . . Bharat men
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musalmanon ko kaha jata hai ke woh chale jaen kyon keh un ke dil Pakistan men hai . . . aur un qurbaniyon ke sille men jahanam milı.26
Muhajirs have the most right to Pakistan for because of their sacrifices Pakistan’s flag came into existence . . . In India Muslims are
told to go away because in their hearts there is Pakistan . . . and in
return for their sacrifices they have received hell.
In view of muhajir sacrifices, the official position, that there was not
sufficient place in Pakistan for all the Muslims of India, was therefore
considered immoral. It is here that a critique of mu’amalati soch, or literally “transactional, businesslike thinking,” was launched. I earlier examined a government file that calculated “surplus” and “quotas” to arrive at
the numbers of Muslim refugees that could be accommodated within the
different provinces of West Pakistan, calculations that were based on the
numbers of “non-Muslim evacuees” that were presumed to be departing. It was these calculations that made “one-way traffic” unacceptable
to Khaliquzzaman, and it was this way of thinking that came to be denounced in Jang as mu’amlati soch:
[Does Khaliquzzaman mean] that it should not just be that the
Muslims come to Pakistan and Hindus from here don’t go? Or
that Muslims from India should not go and Hindus from Pakistan
must not go? Instead hijrat should be two ways, that if from Pakistan Hindus go then only Muslims from India should come so that
the migrations stay equal? . . . The principle which the government and
Pakistan’s Muslim League leaders are following is the principle that in
Pakistan there is only as much room as is emptied by departing Hindus.
From a businesslike (mu’amlati) point of view this principle is all
right but given the present circumstances, can such a calculating
(naptol) policy be followed?27
“Mu’amlati soch” and “naptol,” businesslike, transactional thinking based
on measuring and weighing, or economic rationality and the basis of
governmentality, were deemed acceptable for business, but not “given
the present circumstances” in which people’s lives were in question. An
editorial the following day followed up on this critique by arguing that
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“the problem is not only of mu’amla [economy]. It is also Islamic and
humanitarian and such problems therefore cannot be solved simply by
mu’amlati soch [economic rationality].”28 How could the space of a nation
be calculated in a businesslike/economic way, when it was an ideological
matter? Another article feared that “the foundations of Pakistan” were
endangered by such planning by the state:
Before this it seemed as if muhajirs were aliens in Pakistan, that they
had no right to Pakistan, that the government had no responsibility
toward them. Such statements were being made that our thoughts
were upset, and we ourselves felt that the foundations of Pakistan
were in danger. . . .
[commenting on the statement by an Indian minister that India
has space to take in all the refugees from East Bengal, even though
in reality India is one of the world’s most densely populated countries] Magar jagah dil men honi cha’e mulk men nahin. There should
be space in the heart, not in the country. Indians have space in
their hearts and therefore despite real shortages they are willing to
settle refugees.While we Pakistanis have space and have fewer Muslims coming in comparison to non-Muslims leaving, we are crying
about space. This is not because we don’t have space in the country,
but because we don’t have space in our hearts.29
In relation to the Indian government’s policy of accepting all Hindu
and Sikh refugees that wanted to move to India, the Pakistani government’s position of restricting Muslims from India appeared untenable.
Space could not be a population density or land issue, for it was an ideological and emotional one. And therefore restrictions on Muslim refugees
could not be justified in economic terms, for space was not tied to land
as much as to the heart, or the willingness to support and make room for
more people.
However, the economic calculations were not without their power.
The question became how many Muslim refugees the land could indeed
support, for if all Muslims from India came to West Pakistan, its population would immediately double. The Indian economic position differed
in population numbers and land size, and thus could embrace all Hindu
and Sikh refugees. Thus as discussion turned to a complete transfer of
populations, the need for more land once again arose.
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Ideas for a total exchange of populations along religious lines and the
need for more land to cope with such an exchange had been proposed
earlier in muhajir writings, even if they were dismissed as impractical.
With the pact’s failure in stemming the tide of Muslims coming through
Khokrapar, these ideas found rearticulation.
One Jang editorial argued that “more land” should be demanded from
India for rehabilitating these new muhajirs.30 Commenting on a statement
of Dr. Shyam Prasad Mukherji on a complete transfer of populations
as a solution to the “minority problem,” an article in Jang insisted that
“whether the governments agree to such a thing or not, this is going on
in any case, with Muslims being terrorized into migration all the time.”
But it added that “the transfer of populations is impossible without an
agreement on land.” “The time has come,” the writer argued, “for those
in Pakistan to make a decision on what they want to do regarding the
transfer of populations.”31
By 1952, as the government began discussing the introduction of a
passport system, this notion of “transfer of populations” and “more land”
found repeated articulation. It was argued that the Muslim League and
Jinnah had made promises to Muslims and that these promises had to be
fulfilled. The only way to do so was to ask India for more land.32 Such a
claim was justified on the grounds that the Muslims who were coming
were citizens of India, and therefore had a territorial right to India which
they should be able to transfer with them—moving people should be able
to move land with them:
All these people coming to Pakistan are citizens of India and the
Indian government is responsible for their safety and protection.
They have a right in the land of India just like Indian Hindus . . .
thus Pakistan should get this land which is the right of these
Muslims and which Indians are not giving to them. . . . Pakistan’s
original claim was the entire Punjab, Bengal, Assam, and a middle path for connecting the east and the west. . . . And the truth
is that it was in view of this claim that 10 crore Muslims made
sacrifices.33
One editorial was emphatic that restrictions on Muslim entry were
ideologically “out of the question,” and therefore the only way to solve
the economic problem of mass migration was to have more territory:
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It is out of the question to put any kind of restrictions on the coming of Muslims from India, and as far as the danger of Pakistan’s
economy being destroyed is concerned, so in this matter a few things
need to be kept in mind. One primary thing is that in view of this
migration and if Muslims from India continue to come to Pakistan
at this rate, then Pakistan has to ask India for more land. . . . There is
one solution to the minority problem and this solution is acceptable
to Pakistan, and that is that the minorities are exchanged and for the
excess of Muslims who are resettled here accordingly land is given,
in which the Muslims coming from India can be settled.34
Clearly this notion of expanding the territorial limits of the state to
accommodate the proclaimed nation in its entirety was fantastical, given
the kind of hostility that the Pakistan idea itself had generated among
many Indian leaders.35 Still, the fabulous aspects of these ideas are worth
examining.
They testify to the force of the muhajir refusal to accept that Muslims
in India be excluded from a Pakistani nation-state. This is not surprising,
because the muhajir-Indian Muslim identity was but a matter of semantics
and location at this time, and a large number of muhajirs had friends and
family on the other side. So although the Pakistani government went
ahead with its plans to introduce the passport system, and removed services from Khokrapar,36 it was not able to police that crossing.This meant
that though fewer people were making the hazardous desert journey,
there was a continuous “trickle” through the crossing until the 1965 war
between the two countries.37
debating the nation
There were two important debates in the Constituent Assembly on restricting the entry of Muslims from India. The first debate, on April 7,
1952, concerned a government proposal to add a “limit date” to the citizenship laws, which had been passed in April 1951 with fairly little debate
since they provided for citizenship in more or less the same manner as the
Indian citizenship laws.38
The government brought a number of amendments to the Citizenship
Bill for approval to this debate, and these are worth examining. The first
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amendment was to remove the domicile requirement for government
servants who were posted abroad. This innocuous legislative change was
important because the nationality of the Pakistani high commissioner
in India, Mohammad Ismail, had come into question.39 He was a north
Indian Muslim who had not physically migrated, but was Pakistan’s diplomatic representative in India. A controversy had arisen when he was
quoted in a newspaper as saying that he considered himself an Indian.
Thus this amendment was meant to encompass the nationality of all government servants.
The second amendment called for the removal of the registration requirement for acquiring citizenship for Muslim refugees from India, since
the task of individually registering over 8 million people was considered
an “impracticable demand.” The amendment automatically granted citizenship to all those who had come to Pakistan before the commencement
of the Citizenship Act on April 13, 1951. As a result, it became possible
for Muslims to obtain Pakistani passports fairly easily by claiming to have
arrived by this date. As we will see in the next chapter, this ease acquired
significance as it became difficult for Muslims to obtain Indian passports
for travel.
Legislatively this meant that all those who had migrated to Pakistan
after the commencement of the act would be rendered “stateless,” and
thus a third amendment was proposed to register those who had migrated
to Pakistan between the commencement of the act and January 1, 1952.
Thus January 1, 1952, was proposed by the government as a “limit date”
for acquiring Pakistani citizenship.
It was this “limit date” that the debate centered on, for there were two
contending opinions on whether Muslims in India could in principle
be prevented from claiming a belonging to Pakistan if they came after it.
Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan of the Punjab considered even this extension
for conferring citizenship rights on those “who are pouring in from India” as “dangerous.” He argued that “[i]f you do not stop this continuous
influx, so many will come into the boat that it is sure to go down under
the burden.” This image of the nation-state as a boat that can rescue only
a limited number of people had appeared before, so Hayat Khan was
articulating wider concerns. He had sympathy for the migrants, but he
argued that the economy could not shoulder their burden.
Khan also argued that if immigration was allowed, then “you must
demand of the government of India extra territory in proportion to the
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number of Indian citizens who are being pushed across the border into
Pakistan so that you may be able to rehabilitate them there.” This notion
of needing to expand the territorial limits of the state was therefore not
just a muhajir imaginary; but that did not make it any more feasible.
Hayat Khan’s view was opposed by Sardar Amir Azam Khan of the
Punjab, who reminded the house that the All India Muslim League had
stood for two objectives. First, “that the Muslim majority areas be constituted into a free and independent country,” and second, “that the government be so constituted [so as to] act as a counterpoise to the government
of India in securing security of life for the Muslims of those territories
which will form part of the Dominion of India.” He expressed the view
of many when he said that “[w]e can never turn our back on those Muslims who staked their all to bring Pakistan into being, but who after the
fruition of their dream were left stranded in territories which went to
form part of India.” He therefore opposed any policy that would “slam
our doors on those who had gone all out with us in the struggle for
Pakistan.” H. Gurmani went further in arguing that “our concept of state
is different from the popular or the modern concept of state,” for in the
case of Pakistan “the land belongs to God.” He insisted that Pakistan had
to be open to Muslims to “take refuge in this land.” This meant that “we
will have to increase the capacity of the boat.”
Nevertheless, the government made its position clear, that it did not
consider “migration to this country . . . as an unlimited process” and
could not “make provision for unlimited migration for all times to come.”
The government provided two reasons for such a “limit date.” One was
that an “open migration policy” was “making conditions of life difficult
for Muslims in the adjoining country,” because their loyalty to India was
being questioned. Another reason was to avoid “placing strain on Pakistan’s economy and future well-being.”
Although the government’s amendments were passed by the house,
these opposing sentiments meant that the question of the nation’s limits
was far from resolved. Thus when the legislation for the passport system
was brought before the house, some of the same concerns were rearticulated. On November 24, 1952, the Pakistan (Control of Entry) Bill was
discussed to “regularize” the passport and visa system that had already
come into place in October that year.
Ghyasuddin Pathan, the minister of states, who introduced the bill on
behalf of the government, argued that the passport system had been intro-
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duced because it would force moving people to declare their nationality,
and therefore allow for a better control of “Indian citizens” coming to
Pakistan, and in particular the entry of “spies” and other “undesirable elements.” In addition, it would at last allow the government to know “who
are the real citizens of Pakistan.” He added it was “high time for all the
citizens who profess to be citizens of Pakistan to decide once and for all
what they are going to do.”
It was Mian Muhammad Iftikharuddin who pointed out that controlling the entry of “Indian citizens” basically translated into restricting the
entry of Muslims from India. He argued that although “the land and the
facilities available in Pakistan are not sufficient to justify the coming of every Muslim and there are over 30 million Muslims even today in Bharat,”
yet he reminded the house that the Lahore Resolution of 1940 had stated
that “adequate, effective, and mandatory safeguards should be specifically
provided in the constitution for minorities in these units . . . where the
Muslims are in minority.” Pakistan had failed, he argued, to protect “our
Hindus on this side,” and had failed in protecting “the Muslims on that
side.” By declaring Muslims in India to be “foreigners” in Pakistan, the
passport regulations would thus be a final failure of duty.
However, most of the debate centered on the necessity of introducing
regulations on movement on the eastern border, where there had been no
restrictions up to this time. One of the reasons for the government’s insistence that the passport system be applied to both borders with India was
the “language riots” that had taken place in Dhaka earlier that year. This
was a series of demonstrations that took place in Dhaka to have Bengali
recognized as a national language; the government had suppressed the
protests with force. The West Pakistan perception of the growing Bengali
nationalism was, as Dr I.H. Querishi put it, that it was spurred by “persons
from the other side [who] have been coming and mixing up with our
boys.” Thus controlling the entry of such persons provided the justification for restrictions on that border.
When the imposition of permits on the eastern border had been considered, the Bengal government had opposed it on the grounds that it
was impractical. With thousands of people crossing the Indo-Pak border
there on a daily basis, its imposition would cause great hardship to people
in East Pakistan.The same reasons reappeared here, as members from East
Pakistan opposed the bill. Dhirendra Nath Dutta argued that the permit system was itself not working well, and the “remedy” was to either
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abolish it altogether or to improve the system, rather than replace it with
another.40 Sris Chandra Chattopadhyaya argued that there were historical
and sacred connections between the two countries which demanded that
freedom of movement be maintained between them. There were Muslims who went to Ajmer Sharif, and Hindus who went to Gaya, and such
controls on movement would rupture these ties.
It needs to be emphasized that these controls on movement were not
considered necessary by ordinary people, but rather were enforced by the
state as a mechanism for necessary declarations of citizenship. Furthermore, as easy as it would become for Muslims to obtain Pakistani passports, this was not so for non-Muslims. Although there were complaints
in general about the extraordinary requirements of the permit system that
were being carried over into the passport system, such as requirements of
photographs and police reporting (Sris Chandra Chattopadhyaya noted
that “I have got a visa for all the countries in the world but no photograph, nothing of the kind”), there were specific complaints around the
surveillance of non-Muslims. Seth Sukhdev narrated stories of Hindus
whose papers were referred to the CID, and from whom citizenship certificates were demanded, such that “Hindus living peacefully here were
considered foreigners, or I may add a little stronger word, most of them
were considered Indians.”
Despite considerable resistance from both sections of public opinion
in West Pakistan as well as East Pakistan, the passport system was still
introduced, and along with the “limit date” on citizenship, was meant to
discourage Muslims in India from coming to Pakistan while subjecting
non-Muslims within Pakistan to surveillance and scrutiny at the margins of the nation. Distinguishing between “citizens” and “foreigners,” the
passport was to resolve all the ambiguities of national identity in a divided
South Asia, and produce closure to Partition’s displacements.
from permits to passports
In early May 1952, the Pakistani government started proposing the idea
of a passport system to replace the permit system as one which would
encompass both halves of Pakistan. However, the Indian government opposed the Pakistani suggestion, particularly for the east, as it saw “freedom
of movement” there as critical for reassuring Hindu minorities in East
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Pakistan. When the Pakistani government threatened to impose the system unilaterally, a Passport Conference was held May 17–21, 1952, in Karachi. Despite disagreements over imposing travel restrictions in the east, a
Passport Agreement was reached, at Pakistan’s insistence, by June 1952.41
As I have already discussed, restricting the entry of Muslims into Pakistan had become an emotional issue, and muhajirs in particular vehemently
opposed it. Thus in the months preceding the imposition of the passport
system, the government attempted to establish the system’s necessity. In
addition to holding “outsiders” responsible for the Dhaka demonstrations,
the arrest of a dozen jasoos, or spies, made headlines in Jang. It was argued
that Indian Muslims were being sent as spies by the Indian government
by promising to return their properties that had been declared evacuee
property in return for espionage. And in keeping with a need for greater
national vigilance, a police crackdown in Sind on illegal travelers between
India and Pakistan also made front-page news.42
Dr. I.H. Querishi rationalized the passport system as a means to prevent Muslim dispossession in India, for he argued that this would establish
their nationality conclusively. If they came to Pakistan with an Indian
passport, he argued, “the Indian government will be forced to take them
back,” unlike situations with the permit system where as a result of arbitrary cancellation of permits, India had snatched the right of return from
thousands of Muslims.43 In sum, by asserting a kind of closure on identity
the passport system was supposed to provide greater security to Muslims
on both sides of this growing divide.
In India, the passport system was pronounced as a final talak, or divorce, and “the formal and official burial of the Delhi Pact,” which had
once promised “freedom of movement.”44 However, forced to embrace
the passport system in the east, the Indian government attempted to assure East Pakistan’s Hindus that the restrictions there would be “softer”
and that both governments would not place any hindrances on those who
wished to migrate from one country to the other. In addition, those with
properties or relatives on the other side would get special visas to make
travel easier. Khwaja Nizamuddin, who had taken over as Pakistan’s prime
minister after Liaqat Ali Khan’s assassination in 1951, also went to Dhaka
prior to the start of the regulatory system and spoke with Hindu leaders
to assure them that the restrictions would not discriminate against them.45
Yet when the passport system was announced large numbers began to
leave East Bengal, possibly in fear that it would congeal citizenship and
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figure 5.1 India-Pakistan passport issued by the government of India. These were in
use until 1965, when they were replaced by international passports.
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figure 5.2 India-Pakistan passport issued by the Pakistani government.
nationality in a two-state order which would leave them outside the Indian nation.Thus when the Pakistani government requested that the start
of the passport requirement, set at October 15, 1952, be postponed by one
month, the Indian government refused out of a fear that the continued
exodus would make the “situation . . . more unstable.”46
In the west, where the transition from permits to passports was taking
place with considerable confusion and chaos, people hoped against hope
that it would make travel easier than the permit system. However, they
feared it was only going to make the divide even deeper.47 A letter in Jang
made this appeal:
The unbearable difficulties that Muslims of West Pakistan have
had to bear as a result of the permit system are a painful sin in the
history of Muslims in the Indian subcontinent. A son wants to meet
his beloved father and he cannot meet him. A mother wants to see
her only son on her deathbed and cannot see him. Delhi’s permit
office wants bribes, the High Commissioner’s Office is merciless
and follows laws blindly. So how to get a permit? Can a passport
make it easier, or will our grief be heavier?48
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However, most of the restrictions of the permit system, such as the No
Objection Certificate and police reporting requirements, were transferred
to the passport system as well. The permit practice of applying to visit a
specific destination in the other country was continued within the visa
system. In addition, the different kinds of permits were also transferred
into different kinds of visas, the specifics of which will be examined in
the next chapter.
As was the case with permits, the first to be affected by this new
technology were families who were divided between India and Pakistan,
and their letters of complaints were therefore also the first to appear in
Jang. In retrospect, to most the permit system quickly began to appear
easier to deal with than the passport system. An Ibrahim Jamaluddin from
Karachi wrote to ask how he could obtain a passport for his wife and
children who were in India. The permits were often issued to a head of
household for the entire family that resided on the other side. But now
passports were issued individually, and those individuals were required to
apply by themselves to the Pakistani High Commission in India.49 The
passport system then individuated members of families, subjected them
to individual scrutiny, although there were special allowances for inviting
a kin for a temporary visit or permanent migration. One editorial in Jang
outlined some of the “new” problems faced by divided families and the
severe constraints placed on migration to Pakistan:
Now to bring your families across, long procedures are required.
Those who have their family in India, those people who wish to call
their relatives from India, will have to use complicated methods. In
the past a Pakistani citizen could get a permanent permit and call the
relative; now a member of a family has to go in India to Pakistan’s
diplomatic office and make an application to become a Pakistani.
Then it will be sent to Karachi for clearance from the Pakistani
government. Once approved, this applicant will get an emergency
certificate, and so instead of a passport they can show this emergency
certificate and enter Pakistan. For this process to be completed it
will take approximately two months.With this situation thousands of
government employees and muhajirs will be harassed.50
These regulations made it difficult to bring family members to Pakistan, and those Muslims in India who had no family in Pakistan could not
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get that “emergency certificate” for migration. Therefore Muslims in India who wanted to come to Pakistan continued to travel to Khokrapar.
Despite the repeated announcements that the Khokrapar crossing would
be closed once the passport system was in place, the government was unable to arrest or prosecute those who did come across. Services to make the
crossing had already been removed, such that the six-mile journey from the
border to Khokrapar had to be made on foot, and at Khokrapar the new
muhajirs had to wait for days for a freight train to arrive and then board its
empty bogies to a city in Sind. Although Dr. I.H. Querishi announced that
the government did not like what were now tabulated as “illegal entries,”
since they compromised the controls of the passport and visa system, there
was a sense that those who were coming were doing so as a result of persecution or “ma’ashi boycott” and were desperate enough to undertake the
harsh journey. As one Jang editorial argued, “unless the situation in India
improves, Muslims there will continue to come and it is the duty of Pakistan
to give these Muslims refuge.This border therefore cannot be closed.”51
However, as was reflected in the Constituent Assembly debates,“mixed
feelings” persisted on this issue.52 Ahmad Nadvi wrote poignantly from
Hyderabad:
I am afraid that if this migration continues at this rate and the
population increases like this then Pakistan’s economy will be destroyed. No country can take the burden of this kind of population growth. . . . I think about this problem every evening. Surely
thinkers and analysts in this country must have some solution! I
know that the minds of the country must be looking for some solution. Can they tell me what the solution is?53
The Indian Muslim Debate
If the continued displacement of Muslims from India spawned a vociferous debate in Pakistan, this displacement was a comparatively silent one
within India itself. As Omar Khalidi notes, Nehru observed this exodus
with unease in his letters to his ministers, but it never entered a public debate in the Indian press.54 However, Al-Jamiat, with an entirely north Indian Muslim readership, did write about it, and its view of the Khokrapar
crossing is important.
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Although it was the newspaper of a long-standing, pro-Congress Muslim organization, Al-Jamiat had to tread a cautious path, trying to fend
off questions of loyalty while still addressing the genuine concerns of its
Muslim readers. Al-Jamiat had to discuss the exodus without reifying the
charge that Muslims in India “desired/wished” to leave for Pakistan, the
myth of voluntary exodus; yet it could not be too critical of the discrimination Muslims were facing, for this could demoralize its readers and
encourage further exodus.This was one of the effects of being policed for
loyalty and disloyalty to the nation; the need for caution placed significant
restraints on speech.
This is evident in an editorial during the Ramadan of 1951, as AlJamiat attempted to counter a rumor that after Eid-ul-Fitr was celebrated many Muslims of Delhi would be leaving for Pakistan; their
beddings were supposedly already packed and they were only waiting
for Ramadan to be over. Al-Jamiat argued that this rumor was being
spread by “communalists” to legitimize the harassment of Muslims and
that this was pushing out thousands of Muslims into Pakistan. However,
given the force of the rumor, Al-Jamiat began inquiries to find out if
it was true, and if so, why the Muslims of the city were planning to
leave. The paper found out that in Suiwallan, in old Delhi, twenty-four
Muslims had been arrested, and as a result of this incident, Al-Jamiat
said, “their spirit has been broken and they do not have hope that they
will be able to live there with respect and peace and that at any time
they could face injustice.” However, Al-Jamiat reported that the incident was linked to only one police officer, “because of whom many
Muslims have lost heart.” Therefore the newspaper argued that only a
few people were affected: the rumor was false and intended to “create
an atmosphere of distrust.”55
At the same time, Al-Jamiat tried to address the reality that, indeed,
a large number of north Indian Muslims were leaving for Pakistan. It
argued that, contrary to the muhajir discourse in Pakistan, Muslims were
not leaving because they did not feel safe in India and that as long as
they were unsafe the passage to Pakistan had to be kept open. Although
Al-Jamiat agreed that if the Khokrapar crossing was closed it would have
a terrible “psychological effect” on Muslims in India, it argued that “insecurity” was not the only reason for the departures and that the Pakistani
press was misrepresenting the situation of Muslims in India:
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In our view there are many different kinds of people who are going
via Khokrapar. Some are those who have relatives there already and
cannot get a permanent permit to go to Pakistan. Some are facing
economic hardships and think that by going to Pakistan they will
earn better, and then there are others whose friends/companions
have opened small factories and workshops in Pakistan and they
want to join the team to work there. Their interest is entirely from
the business point of view.56
In other articles, Al-Jamiat tried to convince its readers that they should
remain in India. Leaving was not going to solve the problem; there would
still be 4 crore Muslims staying behind. Al-Jamiat also tried to disillusion
its readers of better conditions in Pakistan:
Will they get a house when they reach there? Get employment?
Get respect? Get peace? The housing situation there is such that
you have to give 10,000 rupees in pagri to get a place and the rest
of the poor, only God is their caretaker; lakhs of muhajirs are lying
on the streets, victims of all kinds of illnesses, and the employment
situation is such that for twelve or thirteen clerk positions there are
700 applications, which means that all that respect and peace that
you are going for, that much hardship you will have to face.57
When 350 Muslim families returned to Delhi as a result of the NehruLiaqat Pact, Al-Jamiat reiterated its point that “apna ghar apna hi hota hai
[one’s own home is one’s own].” It argued that if “it is well known that grain
is very cheap in Pakistan, then why are these people coming back? . . . It is
wrong to think that Pakistan is there for Muslims in their difficult times . . .
it is only for the Muslims who belong there but not for those in India, Iran,
or Egypt.”58
If Pakistan was not going to be a refuge for Muslims in India, then
Al-Jamiat would try to give hope of a better future in India itself. In one
article it argued that there were two views of life for Muslims in India. In
the first, murderers of Muslims were not being punished, communalists
were not being stopped, those harassing Muslims were not being controlled, those attacking Islam were not being reprimanded, the government was biased, and the doors of employment were closed to Muslims,
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and they were being removed from their jobs. However, Al-Jamiat argued,
this view was making Muslims afraid of living in India; it was making
them hopeless for the future and so they were heading to Pakistan. AlJamiat offered an alternative perspective. India was where their roots were,
and these roots were strong. The future, too, it argued, was “to a great
extent bright” because they lived in a democracy in which all citizens
were equal. Moreover, “even though this is not being implemented right
now, how long can this state of affairs go on. Any system must eventually,
in ten years or so, take effect.” Thus noting a frustrating reality, Al-Jamiat
asked Muslims to be patient.59
Al-Jamiat tried to respond to exclusionary denunciations that all Muslims in India were Pakistanis, particularly by the recently established
Bharatiya Jana Sangh, an ally of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on the
Hindu right. Taking on their calls to reverse Partition, one article argued
that such a demand imagined the territory of Pakistan as not foreign but
still part of India. It quibbled with the semantics of Pakistani by arguing
that “we are happy that Hindustan’s Muslims are being called Pakistani
because Pakistani was defined by them [the Jana Sangh]. I mean that a
person who thinks Pakistan is a foreign country is not a Pakistani, and
those who think it is not is a Pakistani.Thus by this definition, Jana Sangh
are Pakistanis for they think of Pakistan as their country and want to
make it part of Akhund Bharat.”60
After discussions of the passport system and the closing of the Khokrapar
border crossing emerged in 1952, the same two poles of opinion were evident. On the one hand, articles and letters in Al-Jamiat called the system
a new wall, “passport ki diwar,” between the two countries, and argued for
an ease of travel because “although India and Pakistan are politically two
separate countries yet both countries have people that have a spiritual relationship with each other.” In addition, closure of the Khokrapar border
crossing would have dire consequences:61
At first we had heard that after the passport system the Khokrapar
route would not be closed. But now we are hearing that the Pakistan government wants to close the Khokrapar route since it thinks
that unless it is closed the passport system will not work. But it
should not close it immediately, but wait and see if the passport
system fails or not. . . . If it is closed immediately it will have a ter-
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rible psychological effect on Indian Muslims and for some time the
people [awam] will suffer a depression.62
On the other hand, Al-Jamiat also argued that a complete sealing of
the border was necessary for Muslims in India to be accepted as citizens
of India. But this should only be so if the same restrictions are applied to
Hindus in East Bengal, so that they are forced to remain there (presumably as hostages). As one letter argued, “the real passport is that Pakistan
breaks all links with Indian Muslims and India with Pakistani Hindus . . .
they consider them the nationals of the other country and take no interest in them.”63 Similarly another editorial argued that
if the Government of Pakistan does not want Hindustan’s Muslims
to put their foot on Pakistan’s territory then the Government of
India should also place the same restrictions on East Bengal’s Hindus and not let them come to Hindustan, and going and coming
on both sides be completely stopped. . . . I will go so far as to say
that until Pakistan’s Hindus and India’s Muslims put mud [matı]
on themselves and are not considered the full citizens of the two
countries, until then the introduction of the passport system is ridiculous.When in Hindustan there is such an uproar over Pakistan’s
Hindus and when in Pakistan there is fellow feeling with India’s
Muslims, then what good is the damn passport system?64
In the next chapter we will see how contingent “the damn passport
system” was in aligning citizenship in a landscape still in flux with other
forms of belonging and relationships. And yet these two poles of opinion
reflect the predicament Muslims in India faced; if passports institutionalized national identities, this was a severing that made them “foreigners” to
the once-proclaimed Muslim homeland, and left them in a still uncertain
place of national belonging in their own homes.
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6.The Phantasm of Passports
phantasm n and adj: a thing or being which apparently exists but is
not real . . . a figment of the imagination. . . . A person who is not what
he or she appears or claims to be.*
T
he shift from the technology of permits to that of passports for controlling the movement of people was an extraordinarily important one. If defining the nations of divided South Asia was to achieve
categorical closure, the emergence of passports served to distinguish citizens from aliens, nationals from foreigners, in the midst of an historical
mess and a landscape of shifting identities. However, as a successor to
permits, the passport had to be made to function as a travel document
and a certificate of citizenship. This relationship between passports and
citizenship could not be taken for granted, for it had to be produced with
considerable bureaucratic imagination and force.
The passport system for travel between India and Pakistan was introduced at the insistence of the Pakistani government, so that Muslims coming from India to Pakistan could be positively identified as Indian nationals
and thus be distinguished and severed from the multitudinous claims on the
body of the Pakistani nation. However, the new passports had to function
* From the Oxford English Dictionary (ed. J. Simpson) by permission of Oxford
University Press.
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in a context in which the relationship between Muslim and Pakistani was
far from resolved, and Indian Muslim–muhajir remained transitive categories. Not only were Muslims in India continuing to be displaced through
Khokrapar to become muhajirs, but many were also attempting to return to
their homes in India. For instance, in 1950, Indian Muslims who had come
to Pakistan wanted to return to their homes, and 95,000 had registered to
do so after the Nehru-Liaqat Pact. Furthermore, in India, public debates
and permit and evacuee property court cases continued to grapple with
raging questions of whether Muslims could be loyal citizens, subjected to
deportations, or were simply “evacuees” and “intending evacuees.”
Thus the passport system that emerged for travel between India and
Pakistan inherited all the anxieties of the permit system, along with many
of its techniques of control (which continue with minor variations to this
day). The No Objection Certificates (NOCs, also called “Endorsements,”
see figure 6.1) came to be required even before visas could be applied for,
and visas were then issued for specific cities or towns which additionally
required police reporting and/or registration at consulates (see figures 6.2
and 6.3). The array of different kinds of permits were similarly converted
into different kinds of visas, so that instead of temporary permits and permanent permits for return, there emerged short-term and long-term visas.
And yet the passport was of a different order in written documents
since it came to be used to mark distinct national identities. Behind the
passport was a single issuing state, and in front of it was an individual.1
The document could be imagined as standing between a state and an individual and establishing a relationship between them, albeit a contingent
one. It was here that the passport acquired phantasmic qualities.
With the advent of passports, a Muslim in India could be deemed a
“Pakistani national” who had thrown away his passport, concealed his
passport, or not yet acquired one. The Pakistani passport thus became a
specter between a state and an individual, and its apparition was used by
the Indian state to mark Muslim identity in national terms. The official
files I examine here on “controlling the entry of Pakistani nationals” and
of “regularizing the stay in India of Pakistani nationals” were attempts
to fix and substantiate the phantasmic passport. The phantasmic qualities
of the passport were exacerbated when the Pakistani state refused to issue Pakistani passports to those deemed to be Pakistani nationals by the
Indian state (particularly given that the rationale for the introduction of
passports had been to limit claims to Pakistani nationality).
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figure 6.1 Endorsement from the government of Pakistan giving clearance to a Pakistani citizen to apply for an Indian visa.
figure 6.2 An Indian visa in a Pakistani passport, issued for only specific destinations
within India, in this case Kanpur. An additional requirement: “Holder should report
to nearest police station within twenty-four hours of arrival at each place, in person
or by letter. . . .”
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figure 6.3 India-Pakistan passport with notification requiring registration.
In this chapter I look at official writing “behind” the document, as the
Indian state attempted to “fix” the “Pakistani,” the emergence of the category of the “undefined,” and the making of a “humanitarian” response to
the bureaucratic violence of these spectral classifications of nationhood.
forms of identity
Although many of the extraordinary restrictions that were part of the
permit system were transferred to the Indo-Pak passport system, the passport was a fundamentally different kind of document and marks an important shift in technology and its inscriptional power.Therefore the very
form of the passport deserves attention.2
To begin with, I asked almost every person I interviewed formally and
informally if they still had a permit so I could look at it, but no one did.
On the other hand, many people were able to pull out old and weathered
passports. This ephemeral and transitory nature of permits distinguishes
the documentary power of passports.
A person traveling under the permit system from Pakistan to India, for
instance, would first obtain an NOC from the District Magistrate’s Office,
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then apply to the Indian permit office for a permit for himself and family members traveling with him. The permit consisted of a piece of paper
which was issued to a head of household for the entire family, and was for
single journeys from a place of origin to a specific destination. Initially
photographs were not required, but photographs were introduced later
to improve its surveillance mechanism. Thus one person in the traveling
group carried this paper, and at the check post of entry a part of the sheet
was removed by the border official to form a counterfoil, which border
officials mailed to the police of the district the person/group was traveling to. On arrival at the destination the person/group was required to
report to the police station there, and if he failed to do so then the police
could track the person with the counterfoil. For the return journey, if
the person/group was making a temporary visit, the person had to go to
the Pakistani permit office and present the NOC for obtaining a permit
to return permanently to Pakistan. Before leaving he would report again
to the police station to inform them that he was leaving, say within the
period of the permit obtained from the Indian office. The process would
be reversed if the journey was being made from India to Pakistan and
back to India.
I have already suggested in chapter 3 the numerous ways in which
people attempted to circumvent the permit system. Also there were repeated complaints that it was a complicated procedure to travel on permits, that there were mistakes made, officials at different stages of the
paper trail demanded bribes, and a certain amount of confusion and harassment always accompanied the process. But here I present a normative
account of a “permitted” journey to highlight two points. First, the life of
the permit lasted only the duration of a single journey, and second, it did
not require a declaration of citizenship.
With permits, there were Muslims in Pakistan who could not obtain
permits for permanent return to their homes in India, and so obtained
temporary permits, which they threw away or attempted to have converted for permanent stay. In addition, as I suggested earlier, there were
Muslims who claimed to have never gone to Pakistan and were prosecuted for having returned via East Pakistan or having thrown away their
permit. But the permits were ephemeral in nature, and though persons
prosecuted, even deported, on permit regulations were deemed to have
lost their Indian citizenship, they were not positively identified as “Pakistani nationals.”
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195
The NOC functioned alongside the permit and established the person’s intention to return to his or her place of origin. It allowed for a
presumption of citizenship but did not subject the person in those terms.
This was in part because the permit system was brought into place before the citizenship laws were formulated for both of the new states, and
because there was considerable ambiguity around questions of citizenship and mass displacement at the time. It was only when individuals
were arrested, for instance for overstaying on temporary permits, that
the disciplinary regime of permits engaged questions of national identity.
Amid claims of having returned home, the juridical question centered on
whether the person had lost the citizenship of birth and domicile by having “migrated” according to Article 7 of the citizenship provisions, and
led to disputes over the meaning of migration.
However, the passport was a document issued by a single state to a
single individual, and functioned like a book to carry its inscriptional authority. Even though passports were issued for only a limited period, their
validity exceeded the period of a single journey. A person carried the
document during and after a journey and could retain it after its validity had expired for purposes of renewal or reissue of a similar document.
Therefore it had a potential lifespan that corresponded to the person’s life,
and could even exceed it as a commemorative document.
This relatively substantial and enduring character of the passport as a
document between a state and an individual had important effects. An Indian government file on how to move the surveillance mechanisms of the
permit system to that of the passport system is quite revealing. While discussing how to incorporate police reporting that was part of the permit
system into the passport system, the Ministry of External Affairs and the
Ministry of Home Affairs discussed how to prevent “undesirable elements
from going underground and indulging in espionage activities.” In the
prior system, a counterfoil of the permit used to be sent to the superintendent of police of the district that the person was traveling to. But now
the visa was lodged inside a passport that the traveler carried with him,
and therefore it was suggested that the border post send an express letter
to the district police warning them of “the entry of suspicious characters.”
However, it was argued that “absolute control is not possible,” and that
“[i]t is unlikely that our check-post will be able to know whether a particular Pakistani national is of suspicious character.” Therefore a decision
was made instead to stamp “Report to police station in person” inside
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Pakistani passports, and thus mirror the practice of the Pakistani Mission in India. The police station at the person’s destination would then
note the arrival and subsequent departure of the individual beside the
stamp. If an appropriate indication was not made beside the stamp then
the person could be apprehended at the Indian border post.3 This is the
origin of the Indo-Pak police reporting visa as adapted from the permit
system that is still in practice today. However, now the passport, required
for all border crossings in the region, became a cumulative record of stateregulated movement, and the subjects of surveillance, previously identified as “Muslims,” “Muslim refugees,” or “Muslim repatriates,” became
positively identified by state-bound nationality—the passport allowed a
categorical shift to “Pakistani nationals” in official Indian discourse.
Indeed there were still Muslim refugees who were trying to return
home. But under the passport system, an inability to obtain a permanent
permit translated into an inability to obtain an Indian passport. Thus instead of a temporary permit, Muslims who wished to return obtained a
Pakistani passport and a short-term visa for their place of origin.This was
particularly the case for Muslims who had come through Khokrapar to
Pakistan; according to the Indian state they were deemed to have “migrated” and lost the right to Indian citizenship, while in a place like Karachi it was relatively easy to obtain a Pakistani passport for purposes of
return travel, by declaring that the person had “migrated” before the commencement of the Pakistani citizenship laws (which did not require registration) or informally through a largely sympathetic muhajir bureaucracy.
On reaching home, they discarded their passports (in a manner similar to
the use of temporary permits), overstayed their short-term visas, or applied for a long-term visa, which became key to becoming “regularized”
as an Indian citizen through fulfillment of residential requirements.4
Thus those carrying, as well as those presumed to be carrying, Pakistani
passports came to be identified as “Pakistani nationals.” In a governmental discussion on controlling the “illegal influx of Pakistani nationals,”
the joint secretaries of the Ministry of External Affairs noted that “some
Pakistani nationals who had entered India with Pakistani passports were
known to have thrown away their passports and to be staying on in India unauthorizedly.” It was suggested that state governments “collect evidence proving the Pakistani nationality of the individual concerned.” It
is here that the presence and absence of the passport gave it phantasmic
qualities. On substantiating the phantasmic passport, it was argued that
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External Affairs should then ask the Pakistani High Commission “to provide travel documents to the Pakistani national.” However, certain of the
Pakistani government’s reluctance to issue such passports, External Affairs
issued the directive that if the Pakistani High Commission “should fail to
provide a travel document, the state government should take steps to have
the person deported.”5
The phantasmic passport had grave consequences, and it encompassed
not only Muslim refugees returning to their homes in India, but also
Muslims who may have never left their homes. The Delhi administration
conducted a considerable correspondence with the Ministry of Home Affairs about what to do with those “Pakistani nationals” who claimed that
they had never migrated to Pakistan.6 When a person (marked Muslim)
applied for the issue of an Indo-Pak passport, the application instigated a
police investigation into his or her “nationality.” However, there were cases
where the CID report showed that the applicant had “migrated” to Pakistan after March 1, 1947, but the applicant himself contested the report of
the CID.The problem was exacerbated when there was “no documentary
evidence” for the government’s claim. This included not only those who
were presumed to have gone to and returned from Pakistan before the
permit system, but also those after it, since “they will hardly be willing to
produce the same as it will definitely go against their interests.”
The Delhi administration complained that there were also difficulties
with individuals who were reported to have “migrated” to Pakistan for a
month or so. If they only went to Pakistan for a short time then it was very
difficult to assess whether it had been with the “intention” to permanently
settle there. It may be that they originally went to Pakistan with the “intention” to settle there, but “after assessing their own chances of economic
and social status they might have decided to come back to India.”
Home Affairs replied to these queries by emphasizing that “mere suspicion” was not enough and that “reasonable evidence” in the form of
witnesses or documents needed to be gathered. On the basis of this “evidence,” the person would be required to prove otherwise. “Mere denial
of the charge on their part will not be sufficient” and they would have
to give “details of the places where they stayed and produce necessary
evidence of receipts, postal communications received at those addresses,
employment or profession pursued during the period, etc.” Thus a simple
application for an Indian Indo-Pak passport could have led to a fundamental challenge over nationality.
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On the question of those returning from short visits, it was argued that
no matter how difficult, the “intentions” had to be interrogated on the basis
of the person’s actions: “thus for instance, if the whole unit of family had
gone to Pakistan without obtaining a No Objection to Return Certificate,
or when there was no compelling circumstance like communal riots to
justify a departure from India, the family will have to be treated as migrants.
Where an individual member of a family had gone to Pakistan leaving other
members in India, the plea that he had to go to Pakistan on account of
communal riots . . . can hardly be accepted, and it will be a clear case of
migration.” Thus a visit to Pakistan for even a month could be interpreted as
migration and result in the loss of Indian citizenship. Despite Home Affairs’
offer to help improve the Delhi administration’s power of deductive reasoning, the individual case files that I examine here reiterate the ambiguities of
identity and nationality that governmental process attempted to secure.
muslim difference
Not all “Pakistani nationals” without Pakistani passports were a problem
for the Indian state. For example, Home Ministry wrote to the UP government without alarm about “persons” from Pakistan who entered India without travel documents.7 It noted that these “persons belonging
to the minority community in Pakistan who have come to India as displaced persons and did so with the object of making India their permanent home, should be registered as Indian citizens without any elaborate
inquiries provided that they satisfy the residence qualifications.” This is
borne out in the file of Nevandmal, a “Pakistani national of the minority
community.” The case yielded only a brief correspondence, and required
no elaborate inquiries and no attestations of loyalty.8
There were also “Pakistani nationals belonging to the minority community” who came to India with Pakistani passports, but there was a procedure by which they could “surrender” their Pakistani passports and
acquire Indian citizenship. This procedure did not require obtaining a
long-term visa and on completion of six months’ residence in India they
could be registered as Indian citizens. The Home Ministry noted that
“[e]very month several hundreds of Pakistani nationals belonging to the
minority community in Pakistan are being registered as Indian citizens by
the various registering officers in accordance with the procedure.”9
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If Hindus had privileged access to Indian citizenship, an interesting
comparison is with Jews who migrated to Israel and then wanted to return to India. The official policy is exemplified here:
After reaching there they found conditions of living unsatisfactory
and many of them expressed their desire to return to India. Considering that these persons had migrated to Israel without mature
deliberations and without having full knowledge of the conditions
there, the Government of India decided that they may be allowed
to return to India.10
This sympathetic position on Jewish migrations from India to Israel
was moderated later with a “dateline.” Given that “now conditions there
are better known,” and after the Israeli nationality law which automatically gave citizenship to all Jews entering Israel went into effect on July 14,
1952, it was decided that they would not be allowed to return. However,
Asher Reuben Moses, who left for Israel with his brothers in 1953 but
now wanted to return to his mother in Bombay, was allowed to do so. His
departure for Israel was noted as showing “he had more love for the new
state of Israel. This is understandable as he is of Jewish faith.” However,
his love for Israel was not seen as irreconcilable with Indian citizenship.
It was added that since both he and his father were born in India, “[h]e is
therefore an Indian citizen for all practical purposes.”11
Needless to say, such a sympathetic view was not extended to Muslims
who went to Pakistan. For instance, a secretary in the Bihar government enquired from the Home Ministry about a few persons “numbering about a hundred or two, who had gone away to Pakistan and had
become Pakistani nationals but who have now returned from Pakistan to
their original homes in Bihar and now desire to become Indian citizens.”
The secretary argued that although a few of them might be Pakistani
“spies,” a majority of them “fled either from fear or from false notions
of prosperity that might be awaiting them in Pakistan.” He believed that
they should not be deported, although it was possible to do that, and
instead they should be given their Indian citizenship back, for “it may
bring good by making loyal citizens of these people.”12 However, the
Home Ministry ordered that each case be “laboriously” and individually
examined because Indian citizenship was “a very valued privilege and
cannot be conferred without full and proper examination of each case.”13
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It is noteworthy that although it was specifically “Muslims” who required
careful scrutiny, the voice of the state used a universal vocabulary, eschewing religious markings. “Pakistani national,” as we shall see, provided an
adequate alternative.
passports, literacy, phantasm
A group of five hundred unlettered coal miners in Bihar were “advised”
to take out Pakistani passports, but then failed to get “F” visas to continue
their employment in Bihar.14 The correspondence began in 1954 when
employers of these coal miners wrote to the Bihar government to inquire
how to obtain “F” visas for them even though the last date for obtaining
such a visa had expired. The query spawned a huge intergovernmental
debate on ultimately who was a “Pakistani national,” albeit with or without Pakistani passports, and lays bare the contingent character of documents amid forms of governmental writing.
The Damodar river valley, which stretches across Bihar and Bengal,
is a major coal mining area in India, and some of the oldest coal mines
in operation, dating as far back as 1815, are located here. According to a
study of the coal mining labor force, the miners—drawn from lower-caste
peasants, artisans, and tribal groups—originated largely from the districts
surrounding the mines and maintained strong ties to their original villages, to which they returned for religious rituals, in the marriage season,
and during harvests in the agricultural cycle.These ties were strengthened
when women were no longer allowed to work in the mines in 1929,
which forced women and children to remain in villages. Tracing their
changing settlement and labor practices until 1947, the study argued that
despite these changes the coal miners remained “close to the soil.”15
When the Bihar government wrote to the Ministry of Home Affairs
at the center about what to do with these “illiterate” coal miners who
had been “advised” to take out Pakistani passports, the Bihar government
placed the coal miners with passports as part of a larger problem of dealing with “Pakistani nationals” and their phantasmic passports:
Instances have come to the notice of the state government in which
Muslim Pakistani nationals who entered India on Pakistani passports
and Indian visas have thereon surrendered their Pakistani passports to
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the Pakistan Mission in India. Presumably these Pakistani nationals consider that by surrendering their passports they acquire Indian nationality and may continue to live in India permanently . . .
[further] the erstwhile holder of a Pakistani passport, if called on to
regularize his stay in India, will express complete inability to do so.
Nor can the state government apparently take steps to remove him
from the country . . . no action is possible . . . A similar problem
is presented by Pakistani subjects who came to India after October
1952 with valid travel documents but don’t extend visas, or extend
visas and stay beyond date of expiry. Such persons come up time
and again on flimsy pretexts for extension of their visas. There are
also Pakistani visitors who get visas for visits to specified places and
then move about without prior permission from the state government. Yet again, there are Pakistanis living and working in India
holding valid travel documents, whom the state government may
consider undesirable to allow to remain in the country and whose
early departure they would welcome. . . . The ordinary procedure
for removal by repatriation (arranged by the Home Ministry) after
conviction and sentence in court of law is a long drawn-out process
and would be quite unsuitable in cases in which the state government desires to be rid of a Pakistani subject in a shortest possible
time. (emphasis added)
A year later the Bihar government reiterated its frustrations with the
“practical difficulties with the Indo-Pak passport system,” as “[t]here are
large number of Pakistani subjects without valid travel documents and the
state government is powerless to get rid of them” (emphasis added). The
Bihar government asked the central government how to “compel these
recalcitrant Pakistanis to leave the country.”
How did five hundred coal miners arguably “close to the soil” become
“Pakistani nationals” who needed to be gotten “rid of,” to be compelled
to leave the country? The Ministry of External Affairs then began a correspondence with the Ministry of Home Affairs on the fate of these coal
miners, as well as the general problem of fixing nationality on the basis of
phantasmic passports. In this correspondence there emerged three points
of view for “regularizing” those “playing about with their national status.”
There was the “legal” point of view, the “national” point of view, and “the
humanitarian point of view.”
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The legal view was, simply put, that the coal miners were “aliens”
without valid visas and therefore liable to deportation. The national view
was that because of a “policy of nationalization of our industries” it was
preferred that these people leave India and Indian nationals be recruited
in their places.
But the matter was not so simple. There was an official realization that
the meaning of the passport was contingent, and that therefore they may
be dealing with a phantasmic/fictive classification of people. Had the coal
miners acquired their “passport by mistake”? Were they duped, or had
they “voluntarily declared themselves to be Pakistani nationals, and on
this basis had taken out Pakistani passports”? Could an unlettered person
be held accountable for written documents that they could not read or
sign? Since they were “illiterate” could they be aware of the implications
of what they had done? As these questions entered into official writing
there emerged the “humanitarian” point of view.
Thus from the humanitarian point of view it was proposed that instead of declaring all the coal miners as “aliens,” each case be reviewed
“individually on merit,” and that “[i]f they [the state government] find
that a particular Pakistani national has made India his home and has no
connection whatsoever with Pakistan and has taken a Pakistan passport by
mistake then he may be allowed to stay in India even without a visa until
the Citizenship Law is passed when their claim for Indian citizenship will
have to be considered.” However, “[i]n the case of other persons who have
some connections with Pakistan, they should be asked to leave India.”
However, from the case of the coal miners, two general issues arose.
One was the question of how to “remove” those with “some connections with Pakistan,” the “undesirable,” and this was tied to the Bihar
government’s earlier frustrations. If they did not leave India “voluntarily”
then a law needed to be formulated for deportation, because “repatriation” through the Pakistani High Commission would “lead to all kinds of
protests and allegations.” In the meantime “they may be threatened that
they should leave India or suitable action may be taken against them.”
This led to the formulation of the policy that the “Government of India
has decided that it is no longer necessary to refer cases to Pakistani Missions for repatriation. If they overstay the period of authorized residence
they should be served with a notice to leave the country within a specified period. If they fail to comply with this order then they should be
prosecuted and made to leave the country.”
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The other issue was the feeling that “we are not likely to hear the last
of such cases. Ignorance, inconvenience, and unsympathetic attitudes of
employers will continue to be trotted out as reasons for special consideration.” Therefore it was decided that a new dateline be set for the issue of
“F” visas, and that it be clearly announced that after June 30, 1957, those
without visas would be dealt with under the Foreigners Act of 1946 as
amended by the Foreigner Laws (Amendment) Ordinance of 1957. This
was considered additionally “advantageous” because “all those who are
still without Pakistani passports will be tempted to take out such passports. Thereafter we will be able to treat them as Pakistani nationals for
all times to come.”
This extension of the “dateline” led to disagreement with the Pakistani High Commission. The High Commission described this move as a
unilateral extension on the previously agreed time limit of April 30, 1954,
to take out Pakistani passports and relevant visas. It argued that “persons
who did not take out Pakistan travel documents” by May 31, 1954, and
were staying in India “beyond that date without Pakistani passports are
no longer Pakistani nationals because they failed to exercise the final option given to them.” External Affairs contested the Pakistani High Commission’s position on the grounds that previously an extension had been
made from the end of April to the end of May for the issue of Pakistani
passports and visas for Pakistani nationals in India. On further dispute
over the extended dateline, the high commissioner wrote to External Affairs on the larger question of who was a “Pakistani national,” for this was
at the core of the otherwise nominal contention:
I feel that a certain amount of confusion and misunderstanding
in dealing with this problem has arisen on account of the lack of
precision in the language used in conversation and letters which has
been somewhat loose on both sides hitherto.This was natural as the
approach to the problem was based on humanitarian grounds rather
than law or politics . . . The question, therefore, now is as to who is
a Pakistani citizen.This as you will agree is a question of law and any
view or opinion which does not conform to the law of the land
will not be of any value . . . We have to see who is a Pakistani citizen before the question of granting him travel documents such as
passports is taken into consideration. On this subject, the Pakistani
Citizenship Act is the law which I have to follow. Under that law
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only those persons living in India are Pakistani citizens who hold
or have held or had obtained a valid Pakistani passport before April
30, 1954. Those persons who do not qualify under the provisions of
our law are not Pakistani citizens.
There are approximately 3.5 crore of Muslims in India and they
are Indian citizens under the laws of this country. If any one of them
or even any Hindu in India is labeled as a Pakistani and asked to
produce documents by the Indian authorities, that would not mean
we can accept him as such. A person has to be qualified within the
meaning of Pakistani Citizenship Act before we can give him travel
documents or permit him to cross the border.
I therefore wish to point out that the intention of the note sent
to you by this office was that we would recognize only those persons as Pakistanis who come within the definition of the Pakistan
Citizenship Act, not anyone else whether Hindu or Muslim, including those who may wish to migrate to Pakistan now or whom
the Government of India may wish to expatriate. I will continue to
represent the cases of such Pakistani citizens about whose nationality there is no doubt, to you, but they should not be confused with
the Muslim citizens of India or such others who cannot produce
any evidence sufficient in the opinion of Indian authorities to prove
their Indian citizenship. (emphasis added)
A considerable correspondence ensued to determine whether Pakistani Citizenship Laws stated May 31, 1954 as a final date for the becoming a Pakistani national or for the issue of a Pakistani passport. In turn,
the Pakistani High Commission sent the Ministry of External Affairs the
following cutting from The Statesman on a decision by the Andra Pradesh
High Court on September 7, 1957, stating that a passport was not an identification of citizenship but rather merely a travel document:
A division bench of the Andra Pradesh court consisting of Chief
Justice and Mr. Justice P.J. Reddy yesterday declared Rule 3 framed
under the Citizenship Act of 1955 to be void on the ground that it
infringed Article 14 of the constitution and enlarged the scope of
Section 9 of the citizenship act. Section 9 of the act provides for
the termination of the citizenship if a citizen of India voluntarily
acquires the citizenship of any other country. Rule 3 lays down that
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obtaining of a passport from the government of any other country
shall be conclusive proof of the voluntary acquisition of the citizenship of that country. The judges ruled that a passport could not
be taken as evidence to establish the fact of citizenship. The judges
were disposing of writ petitions filed by twenty-two residents of
Kovvur who had been ordered by the state government to leave
the country on their obtaining of passports from the Pakistani High
Commission.The petitioners said that they had come from Baluchistan and settled in Kovvur before Partition. After Partition they acquired Pakistani passports under the belief that people born in the
area now forming part of Pakistan were not citizens of India . . .
The division bench ruled that a passport was not the basis on which
the fact of citizenship could be established, but that it only embodied a request to another government to allow the bearer free
passage and give him every assistance and protection. “A passport
issued by a government to a citizen does not make it a document of
title or a piece of evidence in a court of law to establish that fact. It
is only a convenient link in the chain of international intercourse,”
they said.16
The Andra Pradesh ruling represented just one moment in continuing
contests over the meaning and uses of passports. Finally, as we shall see,
the Citizenship Rules of 1956 gave the central government, and not the
courts, the authority to determine whether a person had acquired citizenship of another country. This ambivalence of passports and the Pakistani High Commission’s reluctance to issue Pakistani passports to those
presumed to be Pakistani nationals by the Indian state meant that a new
category of people emerged—the “undefined.”
the undefined
In 1954 Ghafoor Khan, an unlettered millworker in Kanpur, received
news that his daughter, who had migrated to Pakistan with her husband,
was seriously ill and that he should be “by her bedside immediately.”
His petition noted that he was “advised by the laymen to whom I had
referred about my difficulties that it would take months and months to
secure a passport,” and therefore he went through the Khokrapar Pass to
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Karachi “without loss of time.” However, after spending a month with his
daughter, he found that return was not so simple:
That after my visit to Karachi when I wanted to come back after a
month or about I was told there that I would not be allowed to go
back to India through Khokrapar Pass because the passage was onesided and that I would not be allowed otherwise to enter into India
unless I had obtained a passport from the Pakistan government. . . .
That I felt and believed that it was just the necessary procedure to
be gone through to be able to go back to my home, my country, and
my people . . . I had gone there with the limited purpose of being
beside the bed of my ailing daughter for whom I have great love and
affection . . . I had gone alone, leaving my life-partner, my wife, my
two sons, and daughter and grandsons in India.
It was the Pakistani passport that led to his arrest under the Foreigners Act after he had returned back home. He was thus forced to leave for
Pakistan every time his passport and visa expired, to obtain a new one.
Although he had great affection for his daughter in Pakistan, he tried to
establish that “home” was where his wife, other children, and grandchildren were, and that to be declared a “foreigner” in his own “home” had
caused him “intense mental anguish” which had shattered his health. He
described himself as “an old, illiterate man of about sixty-two years of
age” at his “journey’s end,” and “a humble illiterate person,” and that he
had been “a peaceful and faithful citizen of India,” “an Indian national,
entitled to remain here” with his family. He appealed on “humanitarian
considerations” for his citizenship to be restored to him.
Ghafoor Khan’s petition self-consciously established a relationship between the passport as a written document, literacy, and orality. Ghafoor
Khan was an “illiterate” man who received oral information from “laymen” in his community that it was very difficult to obtain a passport, and
he was “told” by people around him that a passport was his only means
of return. To Ghafoor Khan, there was very little difference between the
Indian and Pakistani governments issuing the written documents, for the
landscape was foremost defined by a beloved daughter and his wife and
other children and grandchildren. However, unable to remain at home
with his wife, the Pakistani passport and Indian nationality acquired an
unprecedented force.
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The different official responses to Ghafoor Khan’s Pakistani passport
reflect the unsettled character of the written document, as a mere travel
document or as tied to citizenship. When Ghafoor Khan was prosecuted
for overstaying his visa he appealed to the courts, and the lower court adjudicated that he was not liable for prosecution under the Foreigners Act
as he was not a “foreigner”; he had not ceased to be an Indian national.
This judgment was based on the Andra Pradesh High Court decision
that passports were not certificates of citizenship, but merely “convenient
link[s] in the chain of international intercourse.”
The police report on Ghafoor Khan was also sympathetic, and stated
that he was “not dangerous from the security angle” and that he was an
old man of fifty-six years who had “grown weak.” In addition, all of his
near relations, his wife, sons, and daughter were residing in India. “As
such,” the report added, “his stay in Pakistan might be a painful one.”
Another police inquiry stated that there was no conclusive proof (no
written evidence) about the sickness of his daughter in Pakistan in November 1954, but according to other people in his locality “it was found
that he went to Pakistan to see his daughter who was ill at that time in
Pakistan.”
Despite the lower court’s decision and favorable police reports, the UP
government rejected his claim to Indian citizenship as “untenable.” It argued that Ghafoor Khan’s version was “an afterthought and can hardly be
accepted” because he worked as a fruit seller while he was in Pakistan, and
did not approach the Indian Mission in Pakistan for help to return. His
reason for now desiring Indian citizenship was that he “failed to establish
himself in Pakistan” and was deemed to be “a full-fledged Pakistani national.” The UP government refused to take into account that as a poor
man, Ghafoor Khan needed to earn a living when he was in Pakistan, or
that the Indian High Commission was unlikely to give an Indian passport
to a Muslim man in Pakistan.
When the UP government forwarded Khan’s file to the central government, the Ministry of Law wrote that it did not think Ghafoor Khan
had “migrated” since he had compelling reasons for leaving on short notice without an Indian passport. Therefore he had not lost his Indian
nationality, and the Pakistani passport had served as a mere travel document. On the other hand, the Ministry of Home Affairs insisted that his
obtaining a Pakistani passport signaled that he had “voluntarily acquired
the citizenship of Pakistan.”
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With conflicting views on Ghafoor Khan, the central government
declared that “the fact of his migration” was not “conclusively established.” But given Ghafoor Khan’s illiteracy, old age, and mental anguish, a “humanitarian point of view” had to be taken to mitigate the
violence of national categories. As a result, it was decided to allow him
to remain in India “with undefined status, provided he does not come
to adverse notice.”17
The “undefined” then emerged as this category of moving people
that became caught in the nationalizing order of the passport system. In
the case of Basar Khan, an application for an Indian Indo-Pak passport to
visit his ailing mother in Peshawar resulted in his being declared an “undefined person.” Originally from Peshawar, Basar Khan came to work
for a transport company in 1943 in Madras, where he met and married
his wife, who was born there, and where they were resident at the time
of application. He was, however, considered to have entered India before
the permit system, and therefore his “status” was deemed to be “unclear.”
As he was considered “Possibly Pakistani,” and there were “doubts about
[his] Indian nationality,” the Ministry of External Affairs raised the question of whether giving him an Indian passport would equal granting
him citizenship.
Here again the “humanitarian point of view” had to be accommodated, for Basar Khan had left Peshawar and married and settled in Madras
at a time, not just before the permit system, but well before Partition or
Pakistan. Therefore instead of an Indian passport, a bureaucratic technique had to be found to accommodate him. Initially it was suggested
that he be given an “emergency certificate” to be considered an Indian national. It was argued, however, that “emergency certificates” were
granted to only “stateless persons, and he is still a Pakistani national.” This
led to a correspondence on whether he could “make an affidavit declaring his intention to stay in India permanently and renounce his Pakistani
nationality,” and thus become a stateless person who could then acquire
Indian citizenship. However, allowing an individual to renounce his Pakistani nationality, in other words choose his own nationality, was to open a
Pandora’s box in this social and political landscape. There were immediately questions about whether this was “legally possible,” as well as fears
of others following suit. Therefore, it was finally decided to deny him an
Indian passport to visit his mother, but allow him to remain in India in
an “undefined status.”18
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dependent women, chivalrous state
As I argued in chapter 3, women were not entitled to autonomous citizenship because of Article 5 of the citizenship laws by which their “domicile” was vested in that of their father or husband. Because permits were
issued to both individuals and households, women, often incorporated
in households, moved between the two states without directly engaging
contestations of citizenship. However, with the onset of the passport system, when women applied as individuals for passports their legal status as
“dependents” became of importance.
Karimunnisa’s natal and conjugal home was in Nagpur, until her husband, Abdul Rahim, decided to go to Pakistan on December 28, 1947.
She moved to Quetta with him and they lived there until he died. When
he died, she decided to return to Nagpur on December 17, 1952, with
her young children, as her entire kin network was based there and could
provide her with the support she needed. She returned to India on a
Pakistani passport and a “C” visa for temporary stay. Her visa was valid
for only forty-five days and therefore she applied for an extension of her
visa, while at the same time she made an application to the Indian High
Commission for a permanent permit, and also applied through the state
government to be admitted to the rights of Indian citizenship. When she
received only a fifteen-day extension on her visa, she appealed to the
courts so that she might not be prosecuted for overstaying after its expiration. She argued that “she did not intend to leave India permanently”
and therefore had never lost her citizenship. According to Article 5 of the
citizenship laws, which deemed place of birth and domicile as the basis
of citizenship, her legal case relied on a particular definition of domicile
from A. V. Dicey’s Conflict of Laws.19 Here “domicile” was defined as not
only a permanent home where a person “resides with the intention of
residence,” but also “having so resided there, he retains the intention of
residence, though he in fact no longer resides there.” Therefore, she argued that her domicile of origin was revived when she had returned and
that she was entitled to remain at Nagpur.
The High Court discussed the question of domicile at length, and
concluded that Dicey’s definition of domicile only applied ‘to the case
of a person who can exercise an independent volition so as to lose or
acquire domicile.” However, as a married woman her status was defined
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as a “dependent,” and therefore she was not entitled to the use of that
definition. Instead, “[t]he domicile of a legitimate infant is determined
by, and changes with, that of his father while that of a married woman
is the same as and changes with that of her husband. A domicile cannot
be acquired by a dependent person through his own act.” Thus on the
basis of Article 5 of the citizenship laws, she was deemed to have lost her
right to Indian citizenship by the “migration” of her late husband.20 Denied autonomous citizenship, her argument that “although [she] had to
leave India because her husband opted for Pakistan, she never intended
personally to make Pakistan her home and anticipated early return to this
country” was considered invalid. She was now to be considered as domiciled in Pakistan and could only acquire Indian citizenship on the basis of
a migration certificate issued by the Indian High Commission. Since she
did not have such a certificate, any stay beyond the expiration of her visa
was a criminal offense.
Although the court did not rule in her favor, it nonetheless sympathized with her plight—not because the law denied her a right to independent mobility and residence, but because she was “helpless” and
deserving of “Indian chivalry”:
We regret, therefore, that we cannot help the petitioner. We can
only emphasize for the consideration of the authorities concerned
that this is a hard and unfortunate case where a young and helpless woman is suffering for the act of another and deserves to be
treated with that sympathy which is characteristic of the best traditions
of Indian chivalry. This country has never been known to refuse an
asylum to any person who, driven by circumstances, supplicated her
protection. The case of a helpless widow who has young children
to maintain and cannot live an independent existence without the
support of her relatives in India deserves all the greater consideration. (Emphasis added)
Writing about Partition’s abducted women, Veena Das pointed out
that the state as parens patriae reified official kin codes amid more fluid
and accommodating kinship practices.21 Similarly, these citizenship laws,
gendered rules of belonging in the nation-state, placed women’s identity
and belonging within a patrilocal familial order and did not allow for
exceptions otherwise accommodated within unofficial kinship practices.
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Furthermore, Partition’s extraordinary and diverse displacements disrupted kin networks and the normative patrilocal family. There were women
like Karimunnisa who left behind entire kin networks to accompany
their husbands to Pakistan, but when their marriage ended, through estrangement, divorce, or death, they were left without the resources of
kinship for material support within their natal families or social support
for remarriage.
However, the court called upon the “sympathy” and “chivalry” of the
bureaucratic state as a means to accommodate these spectral classifications of nationality, in much the same way the “humanitarian” perspective
operated. In the archive there are long lists of case files bearing women’s
names. They include numerous cases of women who, at the end of their
marriages, returned to their natal homes in India on Pakistani passports
and the Indian state chivalrously accommodated them by granting them
repeated visa renewals, albeit as Pakistani nationals. Once at home, one of
the ways in which these women overcame restrictions on their continued residence in India was through remarriage with “Indian nationals.”
The cases of divorced women applying for recognition as Indian citizens
through remarriage are equally numerous.
For instance, Mehrunnisa, from Pratapgarh, UP, married and then migrated with Mohd. Hasan to Pakistan in 1949. When she was divorced by
her husband, she came back to her natal home on a Pakistani passport in
1956, and remained there on a one-year visa which was renewed every
year. She then remarried in 1962 to Habibi from Allahabad, an Indian citizen, and this allowed her to register herself as an Indian citizen. Despite
the fact that she had lived most of her life in UP, in her citizenship application she was not able to entirely shed the past with her first husband.
Even though the Intelligence Bureau reported “no adverse notice” on
her application, the UP government still considered her suspect because
“she [wa]s the divorced wife of a Pakistani national and ha[d] lived in
Pakistan for a number of years.”22
Given cousin-marriage preferences among north Indian Muslims in
particular23 and proclivity to make marriage alliances through kin networks in general, as families found themselves divided across India and
Pakistan there were, according to Omar Khalidi, 40,000 cross-border
marriages a year in the 1950s, but which declined to only about 300 a year
in the 1960s.24 This is not surprising since such marriages not only made
it difficult for women to return to their natal homes for social support
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and ritual purposes, they also made that separation almost permanent
through loss of citizenship.
Ironically, because women’s dependent status made patrilocal residence normative for citizenship, women could move through marriage
while men could not move at all. Matrilocal arrangements, such as that of
a ghar-damad (literally inhouse-son-in-law) found sometimes in cousinmarriage alliances when a woman had no brothers, was made impossible
by these citizenship laws.
There were also women who chose not to leave their homes in India
while their husbands went to Pakistan, but under these citizenship laws
they lost their rights without ever leaving their homes. The case of Hidayathunissa Begum, along with her three daughters and a son, is one example. Her husband and their father, Fakhruddin, migrated to Pakistan in
1947 and acquired Pakistani nationality, but she and the children remained
in their village in India. In 1958 they applied for an Indo-Pak passport to
go to visit Fakhruddin, and then the question of their citizenship arose.
On the basis of law, the state government declared that their very stay
in India was “unauthorized” since “they were also Pakistani nationals in
view of the fact that Shri Fakruddin had acquired Pakistani nationality,”
and therefore they should be deported to Pakistan.
However, “on humanitarian grounds” the state decided that it would
not be “desirable . . . to compel them to leave for Pakistan against their
will,” as they had “all along resided here.” They were allowed to stay in
India, not as Indian citizens but as Pakistani nationals, “till they choose
to go over to Pakistan.” They thus acquired Pakistani nationality without
ever going to Pakistan, and the home they had always lived in became
officially only their temporary residence. Furthermore, when Fakhruddin
died in 1960 they were left with no reason or relatives to go to in Pakistan,
and had to initiate an application to be registered as Indian citizens.25
There were also numerous cases in which women chose to move while
their husbands did not. Although the Ministry of Home Affairs stated that
“normally it is not the policy of the Government of India to encourage
members of the same family to have different nationalities,”26 yet in the
case of women “from the minority community in Pakistan” who came to
India while their husbands remained in Pakistan as “Pakistani nationals,”
the government would evaluate each case “on its merits.” If there were
reasons whereby “the husbands of the applicants are precluded from coming to India and acquiring Indian citizenship by circumstances beyond
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their control it may not be justifiable to deny Indian citizenship to the
ladies concerned.”27
However, in the case of a Muslim woman who went to Pakistan while
her husband remained in India, an important Supreme Court ruling
decided that Article 7 on “migration” overruled Article 5 on domicile.
Kumar Rani28 went to Pakistan, and on her return argued that she had
not lost her Indian citizenship because her domicile was vested in her
husband, who had remained in India. She stated that she went to Karachi
in July 1948 for medical treatment with a respected hakim there, leaving
her husband in India. However, when she returned to India in December
1948 on a temporary permit her application for the permit noted that
she was domiciled in Pakistan. She went back to Pakistan in April 1949
when her permit expired, and then applied for and obtained a permanent
permit. However, when the permanent permit was cancelled after being
issued to her, she appealed to the courts for adjudication. The government argued that it was entitled to cancel her permanent permit because
the consent of the provincial government had not been obtained before
the permit was issued, and that she made attempts to obtain a permanent
permit only after her properties in Bihar were taken over by the Custodian of Evacuee Property. The question arose whether she could be
deemed to have migrated to Pakistan under Article 7 of the citizenship
laws, when under Article 5 her domicile and citizenship were dependent
on those of her husband.
It was noted that Kumar Rani married Captain Maharaj Kumar Gopal Saran Narayan Singh of Gaya in 1920, according to Arya Samaj rites
and subsequently also according to Muslim rites. She owned considerable
properties, and in 1946 she created a waqf-e-aulad, or family endowment, of
her properties consisting of 427 villages for the maintenance and support of
herself, her sons, and her descendents. She became the mutawalli, or caretaker, of the waqf for her lifetime or until relinquishment, and appointed her
three sons to succeed her as joint mutawallis. On June 21, 1949, the evacuee
property laws were extended to Bihar through the Bihar Administration
of Evacuee Property, and on September 2 her waqf estate was declared
evacuee property. Kumar Rani then returned to Bihar on May 14, 1950,
with a permanent permit from the Indian High Commission in Pakistan,
and on July 5 of that year filed an application to the High Court at Patna
challenging the custodian’s office. However, her permanent permit was
cancelled by the Indian High Commission on July 12 and the police issued
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her a notice to leave India by July 31. She then filed another application to
the High Court against her deportation notice on July 28. On the basis of
Article 5, whereby her domicile continued to be vested in her husband, the
High Court at Patna ruled in Kumar Rani’s favor.29 However, when the
case went to the Supreme Court, the High Court ruling was overturned
on the basis that “Article 7 clearly overrides Article 5;” she was deemed to
have “migrated” to Pakistan, and therefore lost her Indian citizenship.
It is difficult to disentangle to what extent the contestation over property influenced Kumar Rani’s case, and to what extent her husband’s
non-Muslim status allowed her travel to Karachi to be interpreted as
“migration,” but it set a precedent giving Muslim women autonomy to
“migrate” and lose Indian citizenship, but not to acquire it. It is clear that
women’s lives changed with Partition’s displacements, but the ways in
which mobility and citizenship affected Muslim women and their location in divided families, as well as the making of two nations, require
much more careful study.
flight of youth
There were many teenage sons who went to Pakistan on their own, as
youthful rebels and on journeys of adventure and discovery, or were sent
to Pakistan by their parents as employment for Muslims became extraordinarily difficult in these years after Partition. However, as familial circumstances changed, they themselves or their parents wanted them to
return. If he was an only son the imperative to negotiate the return was
heightened. Here establishing the “minority” of the youth was of crucial
significance, to claim by law that the youth’s domicile as the basis of
citizenship remained vested in his father’s. To establish minority two facts
played a role—one was the date of birth (not an uncommon variable in
records) and the other was the majority age, which was eighteen in Indian law, but twenty-one in Pakistani.
Shah Mohammad of Kanpur claimed that he was an intermediatelevel student when in October 1950, at the age of fifteen, he was persuaded by two Muslim youths to accompany them on a trip to Pakistan.
He left with them for Pakistan “without the knowledge and consent of
his father,” who was an engine driver in the West Indian Railway and had
opted to work and remain in India. Shah Mohammad and his family ar-
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gued that he had gone to Pakistan only for a temporary visit and without
any intention to settle there permanently, that he did not take his wife
with him, and that during his stay in Pakistan he acquired no interest or
property of any kind but made efforts to return which were unsuccessful. It was only after all other efforts to return failed that he obtained a
Pakistani passport, and returned on a short-term visa for India. After his
return home he applied to the state government for permission to live in
India permanently but was refused, and now he was being asked to leave
India before the expiration of his visa. Therefore he now turned to the
courts to be allowed to remain in India.
The Indian government argued that Shah Mohammad went to Pakistan without obtaining an NOC from the district magistrate of Kanpur.
Instead, he returned to Kanpur on July 22, 1953, on a Pakistani passport
and visa, which was extended until July 20, 1954. On July 16, 1954, he
applied for resettlement to the UP government, but was instead asked
to leave the country. The government’s case emphasized that during the
three years Shah Mohammad lived in Pakistan “he earned his livelihood
there,” and that by obtaining a Pakistani passport he had acquired a “foreign nationality.” The lower court, however, ruled in the young man’s
favor on the argument that he was a minor when he obtained a Pakistani
passport; his minority was based on the Pakistani age for majority, which
was twenty-one.
However, the Indian government appealed to the High Court on a
different kind of contention. It made the case that the recently formulated Citizenship Rules gave the central government complete authority to
determine whether an individual had acquired Pakistani citizenship, and
therefore the civil court could not adjudicate on the matter. Despite this
contention, the Allahabad High Court ruled on December 11, 1963, again
in Shah Mohammad’s favor. The judgment stated that Shah Mohammad
had not lost his Indian citizenship because he was a minor at the time and
that his departure did not constitute “migration” since he did not shift
with the intention of permanent resettlement.The High Court ruling set
a precedent that the Pakistani majority age of twenty-one was admissible
to establish minority, and this broadening of the age within which return
could be established was significant for other pending cases of Muslim
youths who wanted to return to their parents.
However, Shah Mohammad’s battle did not end there, for the case
went on to the Supreme Court, and six years later, on March 13, 1969,
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it ruled against him. This final judgment relinquished to the central government the right to determine whether a person had acquired another
nationality, and this ultimately placed bureaucratic verdicts beyond legal
contestation.30 Shah Mohammad’s legal battle was an important one for it
was followed in the press, and marked a coming closure to the many kinds
of displacements of this long Partition.31
Rafiq Husain’s case suggests the many different ways an appeal was
made to the government, outside the rubric of the court itself. Rafiq
Husain was from Bareilly, UP, but was studying in Sahranpur when he
left with his friends for Pakistan. He claimed in his petition that he left
due to “communal disturbances” in 1950, but then returned to his parents
in 1953 on a Pakistani passport. He applied for Indian citizenship on the
basis that he was a “minor” and therefore his citizenship was still tied to
that of his father, who had continued to reside in Bareilly.
The very narrative of his petition was written to draw out a “humanitarian” response from the state. He argued not only that his parents and
siblings lived in India, but also “all other near paternal and maternal relations” were Indian citizens. Furthermore, he argued that after “my going
to Pakistan the condition of my mother who is an old patient of pleurisy
grew worse and began to deteriorate every day because of the grief of
separation. On my return to India she showed signs of improvement and
recovered a great deal, and in case of my repatriation to Pakistan it is almost certain that her illness will take a serious turn.”
His first application was rejected on the grounds that his birth date in
his school certificate stated June 9, 1933, which made him a “major” on
his return from Pakistan. However, he reapplied on the basis of a village
birth certificate, which showed his birth date to be June 11, 1936. In addition, he filed a civil suit in the court of the munsif or subordinate judge in
Bareilly to contest his claim to Indian citizenship. In case the courts failed,
his family also used a patron in government to support their case. Thus
Satish Chandra, the deputy minister of commerce and industry, wrote to
Home Affairs to review Husain’s case favorably, for the father of the applicant was known to him personally:
As far as I am aware the entire family is living in the ancestral village. Rafiq Husain, who was a minor and student at Shahjahanpur
during the communal riots of 1950, migrated without knowledge
of his parents to Pak in the company of some other people. He
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came back to his parents in August 1953 on a Pakistani passport
after failing in his attempts to obtain an Indian permit to return to
India. This is a very hard case which I understand has been rejected
by the Ministry of Home Affairs. I shall be grateful if the matter can
be reconsidered with due regard to the facts and circumstances . . .
sending the boy back to Pakistan will mean the disruption of a loyal
family. To the best of my knowledge the boy does not possess any
property and no other complications are involved.
It is noteworthy that Chandra’s letter emphasized “loyalty” and a lack
of property (and therefore no issues with the Custodian of Evacuee Property) as strengthening Husain’s case. As a result, Rafiq Husain became a
case for “reconsideration on humanitarian grounds.” Although Home Affairs agreed in principle to grant him a long-term visa, they withheld it
since he had filed a suit against the government. They did not want other
petitioners to get the impression that filing suit could get the government
to grant long-term visas. It was possibly intimated to him that this was
why his long-term visa was being withheld, for he dropped the civil suit
soon after, and was granted the long-term visa, which allowed him to
eventually register as an Indian citizen.32
policing muslim politics
Permits and passports were used to discipline Muslim political participation in the public sphere. Passports made it difficult for Muslims in India
to talk about the discrimination that they were facing in parts of north
India, or to have an open political discussion about the bureaucratic and
juridical struggle for inclusion and citizenship in the newly carved nation-state. For example, when Mohammad Hashim of Lucknow applied
for an Indo-Pak passport, a CID report described him as “an old Muslim
Leaguer and has pro-Pakistan views.” He was considered a “political” person, as his activities included criticizing the government on the imposition of curfew, interviewing Chaudry Khaliquzzaman, and attending “a
secret meeting . . . for the betterment of Muslims.” The CID report concluded that “he is sure to vilify India in foreign countries,” and on the basis
of this report the UP government stated that he was “the type of person
who seldom fails to take advantage of a situation in which he can rouse the
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Muslim feeling against the government and the authorities.” Therefore
the Ministry of External Affairs decided not to issue him a passport.33
Shah Mohammad, the youth whose application for Indian citizenship
had been rejected, leading to a court case on the basis of his minority,
was also similarly “blacklisted” because he “along with other Pakistani
nationals” had taken part “in the agitation over the book Religious Leaders
in UP in 1956.”34 Simply taking part in an agitation was sufficient to produce the censure of the state. Therefore in petitions for Indian passports
and citizenship, as in evacuee property cases examined earlier, it became
important to align politics and sentiment with that of the government to
prove loyalty to the nation.
appealing loyalty
The application of Zikar Yusuf of Sindewahi in Bombay State to register as an Indian citizen was a particularly messy one. He had gone
to Pakistan before the introduction of the permit system and had returned to his home in Sindewahi on a temporary permit. Then he had
traveled to East Pakistan after the introduction of the passport system
and had returned to India on a Pakistani passport, which he claimed to
have “surrendered.”
However, when his application was refused he submitted a number
of reasons for it to be reconsidered. In his petition he argued that he was
“an unfortunate victim of the circumstances” because he believed that
the government’s decision to refuse his earlier application may have been
influenced by the fact that he owned land and a house worth a large sum
of money, which had been declared evacuee property. He feared his application had been rejected so that the custodian would not have to restore
these properties to him. Therefore “he beg[ged] leave to submit that he
gives up all his claims thereto and does not seek any relief in regard to
them.” We have seen in the cases of Kumar Rani and Rafiq Husain that
ownership of property, which had become or could become evacuee, was
at least taken into account. So Yusuf ’s belief that divesting himself of all
claims to his property would help his citizenship case was not unfounded.
However, in addition to giving up his property, he also provided extensive evidence of his loyalty to nation. This included:
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1. an oath of allegiance, dated May 10, 1957;
2. a certificate from M. D.Tumpalliwar, the president of the Nagpur
Pradesh Congress Committee and member of the Rajya Sabha,
dated May 20, 1957;
3. a letter from Hifzur Rehman, member of the Lok Sabha, dated
May 23, 1957;
4. a certificate from V. N. Swami, member of the Lok Sabha, dated
July 22, 1957.
If a formal oath of allegiance was not enough, the certificates and letter from recognized parliamentary figures were attestations meant to appeal to the state by aligning political affiliation, nationalism, and loyalty.
M. D. Tumpalliwar, of the provincial Congress, wrote that “Zikar bhai . . .
is well known to me for the last twenty years as a good and sincere Congress Worker . . . In 1949 he came into trouble because he went once to
Pakistan when the permit system was not in force and had to return on
a temporary permit. . . . He is a good and loyal citizen and I am of the
opinion that his case deserves to be considered kindly and considerably.”
V. N. Swami of the Lok Sabha stated that Yusuf “never migrated to Pakistan” and was a “well-known Nationalist Muslim of the district and never
had pro-League leanings.” Furthermore, he was a “loyal citizen of Bharat
but came into trouble owing to his ignorance and having once taken a
temporary permit.” These attestations had the desired effect, and this is
evident in the official comment that “the certificates issued in favor of his
loyalty toward India . . . and his continued efforts to return to India go in
his favor.”
However, what “swung the balance against him” was the Pakistani
passport he acquired for return from his second trip to East Pakistan. He
submitted a memo from the Pakistani High Commission that he had
“surrendered” his passport, and also included a letter from the Pakistani
high commissioner which stated that Zikar Yusuf had renounced his Pakistani nationality and was therefore “not eligible for entry into Pakistan.”
The letter was severe as it warned Zikar Yusuf that “[a]ny attempt at entry
into Pakistan, crossing the border without travel documents will mean a
great risk and you may thereby lose your life.” In sum, Zikar Yusuf agreed
to give up his land and his house, made claims to loyalty and corroborated
those claims with attestations from those in provincial and national office,
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and established that he had nowhere else to go, in order to be recognized as
an Indian citizen.
However, Ministry of Home Affairs, reviewing his reapplication,
noted that the letter from the Pakistani high commissioner was “rather
peculiar” in threatening his life, and cast doubt on its authenticity. His
proclaimed “surrender” of his Pakistani passport was viewed with equal
skepticism, and did not shed his status as a “Pakistani national.” We have
seen earlier that permitting the surrender of a Pakistani passport, in even
“humanitarian” cases, was feared as setting an unacceptable precedent
for the numerous Muslims attempting to return home at this time. Here
too Home Affairs noted that accepting such a surrender would “bring
in numerous similar cases.” With and without a Pakistani passport, the
Indian government held that “[a]s far as we are concerned the applicant
remains a Pakistani national.” Even if Yusuf could no longer return to
Pakistan, or obtain Pakistani citizenship, he was denied Indian citizenship
and “it [wa]s the concern of the applicant to make arrangements for his
leaving India.” Despite his being described as a “well-known Nationalist
Muslim” and a “good and loyal citizen,” the bureaucratic verdict, beyond
legal adjudication, that Zikar Yusuf has been “posing as a Pakistani national and claiming Indian citizenship as it suited him,” forced his ultimate expulsion.35
sympathy of the state
Saeeduddin Khan of Fatehpur, UP, went to Pakistan in November 1952.
He claimed that he went to Karachi “on hearing of the serious illness of
his aunt” there, although he remained for about a year and was employed
as an accounts clerk in the Power and Works Department in Karachi.
When he contracted tuberculosis, he returned to his mother, wife, and
children in Fatehpur in July 1954 on a Pakistani passport. When he applied for registration as an Indian citizen, he argued that he had no one to
look after him in Pakistan, and needed to stay with his family in India.
Although he was granted a long-term visa “on compassionate grounds,”
the UP government rejected his application for citizenship because he
had an uncle in the Pakistani military, and because the CID reported that
he had “strong anti-government and anti-Indian views, which he propagated secretly.” Although normally this could provide sufficient grounds
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for being dismissed as “disloyal,” his petition noted that he came from “a
respectable family” with “an illustrious record of public service in the
field of education”—it was “a loyal family.”
His familial background coupled with his serious health condition to
make him a “sympathetic” case. He was under treatment for his tuberculosis in Fatehpur, and his illness had “considerably weakened [him] and
incapacitated him for any sort of strenuous work.” Because “the lightest
strain aggravates his trouble and confines him to bed for several weeks,”
he could not “undertake any journey or physical or mental work in this
state of illness to earn his living.”
Like Zikar Yusuf, Saeeduddin’s petition was buttressed with a number
of letters to establish both his loyalty as well as his plight, and thus induce
the sympathy of the state. Ansar Harvani, a member of the Lok Sabha,
wrote to Home Affairs that Saeeduddin was “very well known to me”
and was from “the most respectable family of my district.” He argued that
“it will be an act of injustice if he is forced to leave the land of his birth. I
strongly recommend that the Home Ministry should reconsider its decision and save this ailing young man from being forced to leave his wife
and children and old mother for some technical mistakes of his which
made him go to Pakistan.” In addition Harvani wrote to Nehru himself
and offered his personal guarantee. This led the prime minister’s office to
also write to Home Affairs. In addition, Mohammad Ajmal Khan, a former personal secretary to Maulana Azad, the minister of education,wrote
to UP’s chief minister, G. B. Pant, that Saeeduddin was his niece’s son-inlaw, and requested that he be treated “as a case of mercy.”
Home Affairs responded to these appeals from various levels of political leadership by insisting that they had already taken “a compassionate
view” by allowing him to stay in India on a long-term basis. However,
they could not grant him citizenship, which was “a very valued privilege
and is granted only when it is fully established that the person concerned
will make a good and loyal citizen.”36 As we have seen, this valued privilege and proof of loyalty was required mostly of Muslims, and was not
demanded from “Pakistani nationals of the minority community” who
could “surrender” their Pakistani passports and register as Indian citizens
without any interrogation. It was also not demanded of Jews who left for
Israel, but then decided to return. Saeeduddin could remain on “compassionate” grounds with his family in Fatehpur as a “foreigner” with a longterm visa, but not as an Indian citizen with a right to his home.
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divided families
In disputes over Indian citizenship, Muslims attempted to establish
through the location of their nuclear-family ties the necessity to return
to India, and wives, mothers, and fathers formed important relationships through which returning “home” was given meaning. At the same
time, however, showing “no connections whatsoever with Pakistan” was
equally important, as the location of extended family became subject to
surveillance in passport and visa applications. Thus while long-term visa
applications came to require “details of family members or near relations
in Pakistan” alongside details of “near relations in India,”37 the need to
conceal relationships of brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts in Pakistan
acquired significance.
An important discussion ensued in the Indian government on whether
the term “family” in forms was sufficient for purposes of surveillance.38
“It is quite clear,” it was argued, “that we must have full information
about all the near relatives of the applicant in Column 14 [on family in
Pakistan] . . . It is only then that we can fully determine whether the
applicant has severed ties with the country of his origin and can be expected to make a loyal and useful citizen.”
While one official argued that “the family when strictly interpreted
will not include parents unless they are dependent on the applicant,”
another official disagreed, suggesting that “this term has been used in a
wider context so as to include all members of family and not only wife
and children etc. entirely dependent on the applicant.” On examination
of various policies and laws it was found that “the term ‘family’ has been
defined in different ways for different purposes” and the citizenship rules
did not define the term either. Because it was feared that the general
definition of the term “family” might not include parents and other near
relatives, the intentions of Column 14 would be defeated.Therefore it was
suggested that the words “and near relations” be added to the column.
The Law Ministry concurred by arguing that the legal meaning of
“family” is really children, but its wider meaning is “controlled by the
context and is in itself a word of a most loose and flexible description.”
Therefore it interpreted “members of family” in Column 14 to “normally embrace only the members of his family i.e. his wife and children,”
and perhaps parents if they are dependent on him. In order to inquire
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into relations like uncles, nephews, or nieces, the term “and other relations”
needed to be added to the form.
However, the draftsman at the Law Ministry inserted “near,” instead
of “other relations,” for he argued that the intention was to find out more
about “near relations.” This enlivened the correspondence further on
whether it was only “near relations” in Pakistan that the government needed to ascertain, or whether a wider net needed to be cast. “Other relations,”
one official argued, “will make it necessary for the applicant to furnish
information about all his relatives outside India,” and therefore it may be a
“more desirable” term. A similar broadening of the term “family” was not
considered necessary for relatives in India, since the CID provided “detailed police reports giving full particulars about the applicant’s relatives
and other ties with India.” Another official, however, argued that “[w]e
cannot expect an applicant to give an exhaustive list of all relations,” and
therefore suggested “other near relations” as adequate.
Finally it was decided that “other relations” was necessary to obtain “all
the information desired by the term.” Anything less would leave “doubts,”
for “an applicant may very well claim that his uncles, cousin brothers, etc.
are not near relations.”
As extended kin were brought under surveillance, the now-divided
family came to be seen as an obstacle to “loyalty”—a pollution and a danger that needed to be contained. This development is evident in the file
on Muslim government servants in the Delhi administration. In keeping
with this sense of danger, by the 1960s the disciplining of Muslim government servants came to require of them a declaration of “family and other
relations.”39 In addition, their visits to Pakistan, as well as all visitors from
Pakistan, came to be monitored. Table 6.1 is an excerpt from the file.
The lists, although minimal in information, are quite important tabulations of familial ties and attempts by the state to monitor and contain
them through accounting forms. In content, they document the various
stages of Muslim displacement from India, as well as continued relationships between “family and other relations” across the Indo-Pak divide.
They also show the indeterminacy of the categories of “family” and
“relations” that government officials had earlier been concerned about.
On the one hand, many reply in the negative to “Family in Pakistan,”
but list parents and siblings in Pakistan under “Relations.” On the other
hand, others list their brothers and sisters as “Family.” Further, “cousin
brothers” and “brother-in-law” are listed as “Relations.” Certainly, these
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Yes
Migrated to
Pakistan in 1952
Sept.–Oct. 1947
M.K.N. Only family of dead
sister Nafisa in Wah
(died Nov. 1958)
M.A.
Mother, brother
Yes
In 1954 to visit mother
who was ill, for 3 months
To see special cricket
match on special permit
for seven days
Sept. 1960, due to illness of
brother-in-law, Sept. 9–30.
In Dec. 1960 owing to
demise in Oct. 1960, stayed
until Jan. 27, 1961, to make
business arrangements since
sister was purdah-nashin
Two months in 1949,
3.5 months in 1950
Purpose and Periods
of Visit
Yes, my mother came
to see me in 1960—
4 months
Nafisa visited in
1954 and 1957,
2 months each to
visit her parents
No. Both of the
above visits were
made with your
kind permission.
Brother, three times;
sister, twice; sister,
once to visit
parents in Delhi
Family, none;
Relations, yes:
mother, 5 months
in 1955–1956
Family Visited in
India, Number of
Times and Why
No
1–2 months each,
3–4 first time, 5–6
months second
time, 6 months
Brother and
family, week in
July 1961
Duration of
Each Visit
Note by M.K.N.:Younger sister Anisa Begum was married to a Pakistani national in 1957, but due to differences with her husband she came back to India in 1960 with her two-yearold son and is living with me. She is still an Indian national though her son is Pakistani, and visa is extended every year.
Yes
Yes
Yes, one widowed
real sister with her
two minor sons
(migrated with her
husband in Sept.
1947)
M.K.
Yes, one married
brother and
two married
sisters;
Brother, Sept. 1947; No
sister, Feb. 1951
sister, Dec. 1955
No
Yes
Mother, sister,
brother—
Sept. 1947
M. A
Yes
No
S.M.
Visited
Pakistan?
Date of Their
Migration
Name
Relations in
Pakistan
Family in
Pakistan
table 6.1 Family on the Other Side
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No
No
No
Two brothers
M.Y.
K.A.K.
A.S.
A.A.
M.H.
No
Yes, please
Name
F.A.S.
Family in
Pakistan
Brother-in-law
went in 1950
Cousin brother,
brother-in-law,
nephews
No
Yes
Relations in
Pakistan
No
Since 1947
No
1949, 1959
No
Yes
1947
No
1955 and 1957–58
to see relations
Yes
1947 disturbances,
sisters
In 1957 to see my ailing
mother, 1958 to attend
marriage of cousin sister
No
Purpose and Periods
of Visit
Visited
Pakistan?
Date of Their
Migration
table 6.1 Family on the Other Side (continued)
A month or so
Duration of
Each Visit
Once in 1955:
1 month
brother who left in
1949 came to the wedding of other brother
Rashid once, Jabir
Mirza twice,
Aijaz Ali twice,
Masood Mirza
twice
Visits made, but don’t
remember since they
did not stay at our
house
Yes, two times to
attend marriage of
my younger sister in
1955 and to look
after my father in
1961, 6 months each
Family Visited in
India, Number of
Times and Why
226
imagined limits, unimaginable nations
variations can be read as strategies for establishing proximity or distance
of consanguineous ties, depending upon the perception of Muslim government servants of their place within the state. If they felt secure in their
job, perhaps declaring proximity may not have been so threatening, but if
already uncertain about the consequences of being marked as a Muslim
and a Muslim with ties in Pakistan, the description of distance might have
been the preferred choice.
No matter how strategically negotiated, these forced declarations and
surveillance of familial ties in Pakistan had effects for Muslims in the Indian
government service which cannot be readily quantified.The very requirement of tabulating ties as “Family in Pakistan” and “Relations in Pakistan,”
and the reporting of all visits by and to them, as well as justifying those
visits in ritual terms (for marriages, illnesses, funerals, etc.), made them by
their very inscription in government ledgers a subject of suspicion.
The very ways in which one came to be marked as Muslim were transformed by the process of this long Partition, of dividing, categorizing, and
regulating people, places, and institutions for bounding two distinct nations, and they accrued new meanings, for alongside citizens there emerged
the “undefined,” the “stateless,” and a landscape of divided families.
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In Conclusion
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7. Moving Boundaries
We are communal histories, communal books . . .
All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.1
I
n some sense we know much more about the ways in which
colonial institutions and knowledge shaped “Hindu” and “Muslim” identities, and constructed communalism as an essentialized character of India.
But what are the ways in which Partition drew the categories of “Hindu”
and “Muslim” (and “Sikh”) into the vortex of nation-state formation? I
have tried to track some of the institutional sites in which “Hindu and
Sikh refugees” and “Muslim refugees” folded into the distinction of “India” and “Pakistan,” and the considerable labor of two postcolonial states
to map identities, geographies, and histories into bounded nations. We
cannot understand the landscape of contemporary South Asia without
taking account of this formative long period in the making of two nation-states and the ways in which the “Muslim question” at the heart of
Partition shaped them.
Economic, bureaucratic, and juridical institutions and inscriptions of
both states asserted themselves into a ravaged landscape of people displaced from old ties, and permits, evacuee property legislation, and passports were techniques that sought to secure uncertain and contested relationships between refugees, religious minorities, and citizenship. People
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in conclusion
who were forced to leave and lost their homes, and people who never left
their homes, were both unsettled as new nation-states and their margins
came to be formed.
This book has tried to draw Ghulam Ali out of the margins of insignificance, to show how much his story was shaped by this long Partition,
and the logic of making modern nation-states. But his story does not end
in the Hindu camp in Lahore. It began there in the camp as he wrote
petitions to the state, a limb fitter’s ordinary prayer against the claims of
nation, setting off the paper trail that has brought him into this very history. By way of a conclusion, let me return to Ghulam Ali in the folds of
this past.
the limb fitter
Ghulam Ali’s arrest and deportation for entering India, at first without a
permit, and then on a Pakistani passport, as well as his arrest and incarceration for entering Pakistan without any passport, were not, as we have
seen, exceptional events in themselves, albeit their coincidence in one
lifetime was—as would be repeatedly noted in the numerous governmental and judicial files that mark him—most “unfortunate.”
After his final arrest in 1957 by Pakistani border officials, Ghulam Ali
was subjected to rigorous interrogation (presumably for being an Indian
spy) but was found “innocent” and was placed in the “Hindu camp” at
DAV College in Lahore. It was from here that Ghulam Ali began writing
petitions to the Indian high commissioner, as well as the prime minister
and the president of India, to appeal for permission to return to his home
and family in Lucknow:
Now I am here in Pakistan in great trouble without any hearth or
home, kith or kin and living a life of complete destitute in Hindu
Camp, quite penniless with any arrangements even for a single meal,
although I was trained abroad as a specialist in Artificial Limb Fitting on Government expense. . . . [Mine is] a story of long suffering with the humble prayer that early decision be made in my case
with honorable reinstatement to my original position in the Indian
Army and be allowed to enter India and join my service and thus
live with my family in my own motherland peacefully. . . . The 101
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231
difficulties in which I am at present fixed—homeless, resourceless,
and confined to the life of camp.
I want to trace here the centrality of Ghulam Ali’s vocation as an
artificial-limb fitter to his predicament, not only because it is so evocative
for a history of severing, but also because of its subjective importance to
Ghulam Ali himself. Of his 101 difficulties, Ghulam Ali particularly described himself as “trained abroad as a specialist in Artificial Limb Fitting
on Government expense.” This was so important to who he was that he
began his case history not with his birthplace or kin ties, but rather thus:
“I was recruited in the Indian Army in June 1943 at Allahabad. In 1945
I was sent to U.K. on Government Expenses for training in Artificial
Limbs. When I returned from U.K. after completing my training I was
posted at Kirki Artificial Limb Center.”
More than the fact that he was recruited as a havildar in the British
Indian Army, it was the distinction of being sent to Britain for technical
training that was a source of considerable pride for him. I do not know
what his experience in the United Kingdom was like toward the end of
the Second World War, or how he was treated there as an Indian man (although here I am reminded of Kip, the Sikh sapper, in Michael Ondaatje’s
The English Patient).2 Yet his technical skill for the rehabilitation of severed bodies (not unlike the skill of de-mining for the rehabilitation of
land) was important enough to him that when he was offered a place
in the Pakistan Army in another capacity, he refused. This recalcitrance
sealed his fate.
The Pakistani judge who declared him an Indian national in 1956
noted that when information was received from the Indian government
that India was unwilling to accept Muslims who had opted for India but
had not yet joined their duties, his supervising officer asked him if he
would like to “re-opt” for Pakistan. He replied that he would only re-opt
if he was accepted in the Pakistan Army as Havildar Limb Fitter. As there
was no such post in the Pakistani Army, he refused to re-opt for Pakistan.
Captain Abdur Rahman stated from the witness box that he called Ghulam Ali three or four times and asked him repeatedly whether he would
re-opt for Pakistan. “He said he would not do so unless he was accepted
as a limb fitter.”
He made that decision back in 1949. In the ensuing seven years, he had
tried to return to his family in Lucknow and had been deported, and was
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in conclusion
now in Pakistan facing further dispossession. Thus when the judge asked
him if he was now willing to be taken as Havildar Saddler, the position
which the Pakistan Army wanted to give him, he said he was. The judge
noted that “[h]e may have at one time attached a condition to his opting
for Pakistan, but now he has, finding that he will lose his job altogether,
withdrawn that condition.”
Although the judge stated that Ghulam Ali’s predicament was “altogether for no fault of his own” and that his was “rather an unfortunate
case,” he was not reinstated into the Pakistan Army, nor was he awarded
Pakistani citizenship. By placing him in the “Hindu camp,” the Pakistani
state simply disowned him. However, despite the direness of his situation
in the camp, Ghulam Ali appealed to the Indian officials and leaders not
just to be able to return to his “hearth and home.” He stubbornly continued to ask for an “honorable reinstatement to my original position in
the Indian Army,” for this arguably may have remained for him the key
to an honorable life.
On receiving petitions from Ghulam Ali and the camp commander,
the Indian deputy high commissioner wrote to the Ministry of External
Affairs in 1958 to allow him to return to Lucknow on “humanitarian
grounds.” This led to an extensive correspondence between the Ministry
of Defense, Home Affairs, and External Affairs, as well as the UP government on the “question of deciding the nationality of this ex-NCO.”
It was perhaps in the order of things that the Ministry of Defense
could not locate its records on him, and his petition moved from official
to official, gathering comments that would eventually constitute a decision on his employment and his national identity. As the Army could not
locate Ghulam Ali’s files, a similar case of Havildar Bhom (presumably a
non-Muslim) from 1955 was referenced. In Bhom’s case “it was decided
that he should be treated as an Indian national but should not be taken
back in the Army. It was however decided that a civilian job should be
offered to him.” Bhom’s military employment and nationality were separated, and there was no debate about Bhom’s nationality.
In Ghulam Ali’s case, an officer in External Affairs initially argued that
while there was “no difficulty in granting him an emergency certificate
in order to enable him to come to India,” if the Army could not employ
him with his qualifications in artificial-limb making then “there will not
be any point in allowing him to come to India.” His national status was
made dependent on his employment. Not surprisingly, the Ministry of
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233
Defense refused to accept him back in the Indian Army because he had
served in the Pakistan Army. It deemed Ghulam Ali to be a Pakistani
national. And yet despite this official position, Ghulam Ali’s story had an
effect on bureaucratic discourse, and a consensus developed that he had
suffered “for no apparent fault of his own,” that “Ex-Havildar G. Ali is
indeed a very unfortunate case,” and that because he was “homeless” he
needed to be “dealt with urgently and sympathetically.”
This sympathetic consensus produced in sum the very “humanitarian”
discourse that mediated the violence of governmentality, the fictions of
national classification, and it was agreed that Ghulam Ali should be allowed to return to his home in India. However, bureaucratic process relied on technologies of control.Thus, allowing his return was not a simple
matter, and questions arose of how to “regularize” his return and his stay
in India. Home Affairs argued that because he had taken a Pakistani passport, he could not be regarded as an Indian citizen, and with “emergency
certificates” no longer being issued by the Indian High Commission, the
only possibility now was if he was granted a long-term visa for permanent resettlement; that would allow him to meet residential requirements
to become an Indian citizen. However, to be granted a long-term visa
he needed a Pakistani passport! The Pakistani government was not likely
to issue a refugee in the Hindu camp a Pakistani passport, and since he
was not considered to be an Indian citizen yet, he could not be issued an
Indian passport either.
This quandary produced further correspondence on how Ghulam Ali
should be allowed to return. As a result, at the end of 1959, a year after
his case was taken up by the High Commission, and twelve years after
Partition, the Indian government decided to allow Ghulam Ali to return
to Lucknow on “a restricted Indian passport with an endorsement that it
does not confer Indian citizenship,” and the UP government was asked
to keep a watch on his activities. The passport as a technology had to be
adapted to serve here as a mere travel document, unhinged from claims
of citizenship. In this way Ghulam Ali was able to return to his familial
home, without the job he so valued, as a person with “an undefined status” and as a subject of surveillance.
On June 16, 1960, Ghulam Ali returned to India. When his “restricted passport” expired on July 7 he applied to the UP government for
permanent resettlement, in order to be able to eventually regain Indian
citizenship. If the Pakistani government had been unwilling to give him
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in conclusion
Pakistani citizenship, the Indian government was equally hesitant to acknowledge him as an Indian citizen, despite its humanitarian discourse.
He was denied resettlement facilities because they were granted only to
Pakistani nationals, and Ghulam Ali was not a Pakistani national. Home
Affairs replied to the UP government’s query in 1961 as follows:
G. Ali is neither regarded as a Pakistani national by the Pakistani
government nor can be deemed to be an Indian citizen. He has already been allowed to come to India on a restricted Indian passport
as a stateless person with the stipulation to allow him to stay on in
this country. He can stay on here in this status and it is neither appropriate nor necessary to regulate his stay by a residential permit.
Although subsequently Ghulam Ali was granted a residential permit
as a means to “regulate” and “maintain a check over his movements,” the
permit was drafted so that at no point was he to be allowed to presume
Indian citizenship. Although the surveillance reports on him recorded
“no adverse notice,” he was not to think that “he would be free to stay in
the country as long as he likes.”The residential permit had to be renewed
from year to year, and clearly marked his status as “undefined.” According
to official rationale by subjecting him to renewals every year “it would be
clear that he is being treated as a foreigner in India.”3
Thus up to the end of the material record on Ghulam Ali, he remained
a stateless person, “undefined” and a “foreigner” in his home—disowned
by the Pakistani state on the one hand, and a subject of continuous surveillance by the Indian state on the other.
divided today
One of the arguments of this book has been that families became divided
not because members of a family chose to live in one country or move
to another. They became divided because of the way the Indo-Pak border
came to be constructed as an outcome of a long, drawn-out process of Partition. I have tried to complicate the very notion of “choice” that north Indian Muslims seemingly faced between secular India and Muslim Pakistan,
by placing it within a history of state controls on movement and property
that became instrumental in the making of two modern nation-states.
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235
Despite the removal of services at Khokrapar, a trickle of Muslim
refugees continued to travel through this border post without any papers. However, the 1965 war between the two states led to the complete closing of the Khokrapar border, as well as train services that connected Karachi and Delhi via Jodhpur. Although the passport system
also began to regulate travel across East Pakistan and West Bengal, the
complicated geography of the eastern frontier made it in important
ways harder to control and easier to cross.4 As a result, the eastern frontier remained a route for those who wanted to return to their homes
in India, or move to Pakistan. Even after 1965, travel from Calcutta to
Dhaka remained relatively easier than travel across the western frontier. The 1971 war of liberation resulting in the creation of Bangladesh
severed that route for those wanting to go to or from the remaining
West Pakistan.
As citizenship became congealed, travel across the western border to
visit family members became extremely difficult. It became hard even to
obtain a police reporting short-term visa for a single city on the “other
side.” During my interviews I was repeatedly told stories about failed attempts to get a visa to visit loved ones, and here are two of them.
Yusuf bhai told me about a lottery system for visa application that had
been introduced at one time.The large number of people who lined up
outside the Indian High Commission in Karachi were issued numbers,
and each day only a few numbers were randomly drawn. Some people
would stand in line for days, and Yusuf bhai joined them when he received news that his brother was critically ill in Delhi . But then one
morning, as he stood in line, he received the news that his brother had
already died. He remembered with deep regret, “Hum apne bhai se nahin
mil sakae” [I could not meet my brother].
Ansa apa narrated how her sister in Karachi was refused a visa to attend
her own son’s marriage which she had arranged with the daughter of a
relative in Delhi:
To main kabhi bhul hi nahin sakti, jo family divide hoı hai un ke dil se
puchhe kiya taklıf hai. Appa ne, bahut bimar thi. Un ne mujh se kaha ke
passport le jao aur visa le lo.Visa officer jo tha, mujh se kehne laga, bete ki
shadi hai, us men ja rahe hai. To kehne laga, bare rudely ke marriage can
take place without mother also.To main, donon ankhon men anson. Mujhe
rote hue dekha . . . to Appa ko barı mushkil se bataya. [Appa] to kehne
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in conclusion
lagi, “ye kyon nahin kaha tha ke main apne mian ke qabar par fateha
parhne ja rahi hun. Jab to shayad de deta mujhe visa.”
I cannot ever forget.The family that is divided, ask their hearts, what
are their pains. Appa, she was very ill. She told me to take the passport and get the visa. The visa officer there, he said to me, we are
going to the son’s wedding. He said to me, very rudely, that marriage
can take place without mother also.Then I had tears in both my eyes.
Seeing me cry . . . with great difficulty I told Appa. [Appa] began
to say, “Why didn’t you tell him that I wanted to go to pray on my
husband’s grave. Then perhaps he would have given me a visa.”
Appa’s husband was buried in Delhi. She still had relatives there, and
it was through those kin ties that she had arranged her son’s marriage, on
the other side. She was refused a visa to cross a distance of some proximity,
in both a geographic and emotional landscape, and this only makes sense
because it is against this very proximity that this highly surveillanced
border must function, to inscribe national difference where it becomes
the most blurred.
In more recent years, the Indian and Pakistani consulates at Karachi and
Bombay respectively have been closed, and people from those cities sometimes travel a greater distance to Islamabad and Delhi to apply for a visa
than the distance to their desired destination on the other side. In 2003, for
instance, all rail and air links between the two countries were suspended,
additionally requiring circuitous travel through third destinations.
Therefore it is astonishing that long lines continue at Indian and Pakistani High Commissions in both countries, and divided families continue
to actively maintain ties. In comparison, other political boundaries that
came to be drafted in the twentieth century have arguably been more
successful at eroding such relationships.5 Amira apa described this sense of
continued connection sustained across generations when she recounted
the experience of her first trip to Karachi with her children, to visit her
relatives there:
Balke bachche ek dosre ko jante bhi nahin the, woh bhı itnı achhı tarha ek
dosre ko mile. Sab log yehı kehte the ke ye hota hai khun ka rishta. . . .
[later in the interview]
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237
Mera khyal hai jis din hum jate hue hai, agle din se un log kı itnı dostı
ho gaı thı ke lagta hı nahin tha ke ye pehlı mullaqa’t hai . . . [when their
flight reservation to return was changed for a later date] is men jo bachche
ek dosre se gale gale lag lag kar jo khoshı huı itna woh ho raha tha ke salon
ke ba’d in kı mullaqa’t huı hai.
Even though the children did not know each other, even then they
met each other so nicely. Everyone would say that this is [the depth
of] a relationship of blood . . . [later in the interview] I think from
the day we went, from the next day they became such friends that
it didn’t seem at all that this was their first meeting . . . [When their
flight reservation to return was changed for a later date] the children started hugging each other and were so happy as if they were
meeting again after years.
These ordinary consanguineous ties passed down through generations,
and, subjected to surveillance and scrutiny by the two states, survive in a
context when other kinds of ordinary relationships between people are
foreclosed by these severe travel restrictions in the region itself.What kind
of histories can take account of these kinship ties, to represent their claims
of filial love and joyous exchange, without being burdened to carry the
tag of “disloyalty” and “danger” within the bounds of nation? What are
the ways in which we may have to write against nation and against state
to make such histories possible?
moving boundaries
The Partition of 1947 in many senses is not over; it is not behind us. Since
the destruction of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya, UP, on December 6,
2001, signaling the rise of the Hindu right in India, and the communal
violence that followed when chants of “Jao Pakistan, ya Kabrastan [go to
Pakistan or your graves]” rang alongside attacks on Muslim communities
across north India, the invocation of Partition and Pakistan reacquired a
sinister meaning for Muslim minorities in India. The Hindu right’s repeated portrayal of Muslims as invasive outsiders to India tied to a militant monotheism and temple destruction combines with the notion that
Partition represented an inevitable parting of ways of two incompatible
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in conclusion
religious communities. To this day a spectrum of political opinion, from
those fighting for a secular vision of India to those who imagine it as essentially Hindu, continues to draw upon different understandings of and
lessons from Partition to argue for Muslim inclusion or exclusion in their
imaginings of modern India.
Similarly, the rise of the Muhajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) in Karachi and Sind and its violent confrontations with the Pakistani state in the
mid-1990s also drew upon narratives of Partition. The MQM expressed
muhajir disenfranchisement from political power in Pakistan by arguing
that they had made the most sacrifices for the very creation of Pakistan
by leaving their homes in India, and yet had failed to be completely accepted as Pakistanis.While Altaf Husain, the MQM leader, has questioned
whether Partition should have even happened, different opinions on the
two-nation theory and Partition continue to feed debates on the contested role of Islam in imaginings of modern Pakistan. Thus Partition, as
David Gilmartin has argued, continues “to be played out at the nexus between high politics and everyday life . . . linking the state and the arenas
of everyday conflict.”6
In important ways, then, what actually happened at Partition, and the
ways in which Partition is rhetorically invoked and socially remembered,
are tied to each other to produce what could be called Partition effects. In
other words, the Muslim predicament in India today and the making of
contemporary muhajir politics in Pakistan must be understood as both a
product of this history of the long Partition and of the ways in which this
history has been narrated within the ideological frames of nation.Thus in
order to understand these Partition effects, we need to know a lot more
about Partition itself, and at the same time we need to interrogate and
move the very boundaries of how we write these histories.
Partition is not behind us. As recently as August 19, 2003, the Telegraph
ran a story about Ibrahim, which paralleled Ghulam Ali’s travails with the
nation in this divided South Asia. According to the newspaper account,
Ibrahim is a Muslim from Kerala who boarded a boat in 1969 to go to
work in the Gulf states; he was left stranded in Karachi instead. “There, he
came in touch with Malayalees who had come to Karachi years ago and
been caught on the other side of the border during Partition. They were
engaged in small businesses or odd jobs. Like them, he secured a road pass
in Karachi and, in 1978, got himself a Pakistani passport, the only legal
means to return to India.” On his return home, he threw away the passport,
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239
married, and settled down to raise three children. Then in 1996 he was
served with a deportation notice, and was taken forcibly from his home to
the Wagah border post. He is among 360 other such “stateless Indian-Pakistanis” awaiting “humanitarian” adjudication of their national status.7
By crossing the Indo-Pak border, then, a goal of this book has been
not to argue for comparative histories, but rather to attempt such a moving of boundaries. Nation-state bound histories not only naturalize the
nation, but also naturalize national difference of states-in-conflict.Thus in
a now-nuclearized region like the subcontinent, writing carries a special
burden to “rescue,” in Prasenjit Duara’s words, history from the nation.8
It is the categorical order of the nation that produces “stateless IndianPakistanis,” and at the same time renders invisible other forms of belonging and processes in our modern world. This is particularly true for
writing about a diversity of Muslim communities and networks that cross
boundaries through Urdu poetry, Sufi shrines, trade networks, and familial ties; we must therefore rethink the very boundaries of what we know
to be “Muslim,” as well as “Indian” and “Pakistani.” Even as it becomes
more difficult to move such boundaries, we need these alternative regional histories to make other forms of belonging and politics available to
the rhetoric and memory of Partition—and thus shift the very possibilities of how its future unfolds.
Zamindar CH 07.indd 239
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Zamindar CH 07.indd 240
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Abbreviations in Notes
AICC
AIR
CAI
CAP
DSA
GOI
GOP
IOR
MEA
MHA
M/o R&R
MP
NAI
NDC
NMML
PLD
RPP
SPAI
All India Congress Committee
All India Reporter
Constituent Assembly of India, Legislative Debates
Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, Legislative Debates
Delhi State Archives
Government of India
Government of Pakistan
India Office Records, British Library
Ministry of External Affairs
Ministry of Home Affairs
Ministry of Relief and Rehabilitation
Mountbatten Papers
National Archives of India
National Documentation Center
Nehru Memorial Museum and Library
Pakistan Law Digest
Rajendra Prasad Papers
Sind Police Abstracts of Intelligence
Zamindar ABBREV NOTES 241.indd 241
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Zamindar ABBREV NOTES 241.indd 242
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Notes
introduction
1. Saadat Hasan Manto, Mottled Dawn: Fifty Sketches and Stories of Partition (New
Delhi: Penguin Books, 1997), p. 10.
2. See Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University
Press, 1994), p. 1, and more recently Gyanendra Pandey, Remembering Partition (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 15.
3. George Marcus, “Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multisited Ethnography,” Annual Review of Anthropology, no. 25 (1995): 95.
4. E.Valentine Daniel, Charred Lullabies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996),
p. 150.
5.There are many histories of the making of religious community and communalism
in modern South Asia. For instance, see Gyanendra Pandey, The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990); Sandria Freitag,
Collective Action and Community (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); Barbara
Metcalf, “Presidential Address: Too Little and Too Much: Reflections on Muslims in the
History of India,” Journal of Asian Studies 54, no. 4 (November 1995); Mushirul Hasan,
“The Myth of Unity: Colonial and National Narratives,” in Contesting the Nation, ed.
David Ludden (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), pp. 185–209.
6. Choudhary Rehmat Ali coined the word Pakistan as an acronym for Punjab, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Sind, and Baluchistan, and it literally means the land of the pure. I
draw here upon Ayesha Jalal’s discussion, “Muslim Schemes of the Late 1930s Reconsidered,” in Self and Sovereignty (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 388–422. She gives an
important account of the extraordinary map-making exercises of this time which I have
called “fabulous” in the sense Sumathi Ramaswamy uses it to recover place-making that
is not false but “unavailable outside the imagination.” See Lost Land of Lemuria (Berkeley:
Zamindar NOTES.indd 243
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244
introduction
University of California Press, 2004), p. 6. My metaphoric use of maps is self-conscious,
for, as Ramaswamy has argued, it is a modern form of knowledge that, like the census,
has had an important role in shaping the political imagination of nation. The phrase
“moth-eaten Pakistan” is attributed to Mohammad Ali Jinnah, as he accepted a division
of the provinces of Punjab and Bengal as part of the Partition plan.
7. Since 1947, countless contentious studies have examined the question of why Partition happened. This book is part of a broad historiographical shift in which attention
has now turned to examining what happened at Partition. For a review of the earlier
historiography, see Asim Roy, “The High Politics of India’s Partition: The Revisionist
Perspective,” in India’s Partition: Process, Strategy and Mobilization, ed. M. Hasan (Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1993); D. A. Low, “Digging Deeper: North India in the 1940s,”
in Freedom,Trauma, Continuities: Northern India and Independence, ed. D. A. Low and Howard Brasted (Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira, 1998), pp. 1–14.
8. David Gilmartin, “Partition, Pakistan, and South Asian History: In Search of a Narrative,” Journal of Asian Studies 57, no. 4 (November 1998): 1081–83.
9. Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), p. 131.
10. Pandey, Remembering Partition, p. 1.
11. Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), p. 110.
12. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, India Wins Freedom (Delhi: Orient Longman, 1988),
p. 216.
13. Sardar Patel to Parmanand Trehan, July 16, 1947, in Durga Das, Sardar Patel’s Correspondence 1945–50 (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1973), p. 289. Quoted in
Pandey, Remembering Partition, p. 626.
14. CAP, March 6, 1948.
15. Mushirul Hasan, Legacy of a Divided Nation: India’s Muslims Since Independence (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 173 and n.; Census of Pakistan, 1951,
p. 84.
16. Tai Yong Tan and Gyanesh Kudaisya, Aftermath of Partition in South Asia (London:
Routledge, 2000), p. 197. See also Dr. Salahuddin, Dilliwallae (Delhi: Urdu Academy,
1986); R. E. Frykenberg, ed., Delhi Through the Ages: Essays in Urban History, Culture, and
Society (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986).
17. Sayid Ahmad Khan (1817–1898) wrote Asar-us-Sanadid and Silsilat ul-Mulk about
Delhi’s architecture, leading families, and rulers. Asar-us-Sanadid was written a decade
before the Revolt of 1857, but was republished in different versions several times in the
ensuing decades. See also A. H. Hali’s Hayat-i-Javed: A Biography of Sir Sayyid, trans. David
Mathews (Delhi: Rupa & Co.,1994).
18. The Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind, Anjuman-e-Taraqi-e-Urdu, Jamia Millia Islamia,
the Muslim League Dawn newspaper, the Jang, and Anjam are some of the institutions
that were located in Delhi.
19. V. N. Datta, “Punjabi Refugees and the Urban Development of Greater Delhi,”
Delhi Through the Ages; Veronique Dupont, “Spatial and Demographic Growth of Delhi
since 1947 and the Main Migration Flows,” in Delhi: Urban Space and Human Destinies, ed.
Veronique Dupont, Emma Tarlo, and Denis Vidal (Delhi: Manohar, 2000), p. 229.
20. See Ajmal Kamal, ed., Karachi ki Kahani, 2 vols. (Karachi: Aaj Magazine, 1996);
Hamida Khuhro and Anwer Mooraj, eds., Karachi: Megacity of Our Times (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1997).
21. Census of Pakistan 1951, vol. 1, GOP, p. 83.
Zamindar NOTES.indd 244
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introduction
245
22. Tan and Kudaisya, “Capital Landscapes: The Imprint of Partition on South Asia’s
Capital Cities,” in Aftermath of Partition, pp. 163–203; Ian Talbot, Divided Cities: Lahore,
Amritsar and the Partition of India (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006).
23. On the postcolonial state, see in particular Partha Chatterjee, “The National
State,” Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1994), pp. 200–219; Gyan Prakash, “Technologies of Government,” Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1999), pp. 159–200.
24. D. A. Low estimated that 5.2 million refugees moved from West Pakistan into
India, and about 5.8 million in the reverse direction, and this just between 1947 and
1948, and not taking into account the displacements from Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, or
across the East Pakistan/Bengal border. See D. A. Low, “Digging Deeper,” p. 1. Another
attempt to enumerate deaths and displacements at the time of Partition can be found in
C. Embdad Haque, “The Dilemma of ‘Nationhood’ and Religion: A Survey and Critique of Studies on Population Displacement Resulting from the Partition of the Indian
Subcontinent,” Journal of Refugee Studies 8, no. 2 (1995). The numbers for Partition’s total
displacements, however, remain speculative. In Europe, some 30 million people are estimated to have been displaced during the six years of war. See M. Proudfoot, European
Refugees, 1939–52: A Study in Forced Population Movement (London: Faber & Faber, 1956).
25. Liisa Malkki, “Refugees and Exile: From Refugee Studies to the National Order
of Things,” Annual Review of Anthropology no. 24 (1995): 498.
26. See Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali, “Rites of Passage: The Partition of History and the
Dawn of Pakistan,” Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 1, no. 2 (1991):
183–200.
27. See Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin, Borders and Boundaries (Delhi: Kali Press
for Women, 1998); Veena Das, “National Honour and Practical Kinship: Of Unwanted
Women and Children,” Critical Events (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 55–83;
Urvashi Butalia, The Other Side of Silence:Voices from the Partition of India (Delhi: Penguin
Books, 1998); Gyanendra Pandey, “The Prose of Otherness,” Subaltern Studies VIII (Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 188–221.
28. Chatterjee, Nation and Its Fragments, p. 205.
29. See in particular the speech by Diwan Chaman Lall at this debate.
30. H.T. Sorley, “The Refugee Problem and Rehabilitation, Development and Social
Welfare,” West Pakistan Gazetteer 1959, GOP, pp. 751–55.
31. V. K. R. V. Rao, “India’s First Five-Year Plan—A Descriptive Analysis,” Pacific Affairs 25, no. 1 (March 1952): 3–23.
32. A conscious decision by the Indian government to rename refugees to this effect
can be seen in “Decision that Refugees shall be termed ‘Displaced Persons’ and Refugee
Camps ‘Relief Camps’ in all Governmental Communications,” NAI MEA 1949 44(32)A.D. This shift in terminology is also evident in Pakistani legislation.
33. Chatterjee, Nation and Its Fragments, p. 219.
34. See Gerard Noiriel, The French Melting Pot: Immigration, Citizenship and National
Identity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996); John Torpey, The Invention
of Passports (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Radhika Viyas
Mongia, “Race, Nationality, Mobility: A History of the Passport,” Public Culture 11, no.
3 (1999): 527–56.
35. I draw this notion of “internal borders’ from Etienne Balibar, who explains it as
the “nonrepresentable limit of every border,” drawing together all the ambivalence of
marking “insiders” and “outsiders,” such that the “inside” is ever polluted by that which
Zamindar NOTES.indd 245
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246
introduction
is “outside.” In “Fichte and the International Border: On Addresses to the German Nation,” Masses, Classes, Ideas: Studies on Politics and Philosophy Before and After Marx (New
York: Routledge, 1994), p. 63.
36. Gyanendra Pandey, “Can a Muslim Be an Indian?,” Comparative Studies in Society
and History 41, no. 4 (October 1999): 608–29.
37. See, for example, Peter Sahlins, Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the
Pyrenees (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); Pamela Ballinger, History in
Exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders of the Balkans (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003); Kate Brown, A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet
Heartland (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004). In a review essay, Willem
van Schendel and Michel Baud have valuably emphasized examining the two sides of a
border and the “paradoxical character of borderlands.”They consider the containment of
a border as mediated by face-to-face cross-border interactions. “Toward a Comparative
History of Borderlands,” Journal of World History 8, no. 2 (1997): 211–42. See also Willem
van Schendel, The Bengal Borderland: Beyond State and Nation in South Asia (London:
Anthem Press, 2005).
38. http://www.upperstall.com/films/garamhawa.html
39. Shahid Amin, Event, Metaphor, Memory (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1995), p. 5.
40. Dipesh Chakrabarty, “Remembered Villages: Representations of HinduBengali Memories in the Aftermath of the Partition,” in Inventing Boundaries: Gender,
Politics and the Partition of India, ed. Mushirul Hasan (Delhi: Oxford University Press,
2000), p. 318. Chakrabarty points out this sense of not consciously knowing what we
remember until something “jogs our memory,” and it is here that the temporality of
speech allows for surprise.
41.The Hindu right has repeatedly victimized Muslims in India by representing their
ties to people in Pakistan as part of the project of the Pakistani state. During the Kargil
conflict in the summer of 1999, a Bollywood box-office hit got a government tax break,
as it created an archetypal villain who had a dil ka rishta, ties of the heart, with both countries. Instead of portraying him as a sympathetic figure whose historical predicament required understanding, he was represented as a figure to fear and despise. See my essay on
the film, “Yeh Mulk Hamara Ghar: The ‘National Order of Things’ and Muslim Identity
in Mathew Mattan’s Sarfaroosh,” Contemporary South Asia 11, no. 2 (2002): 183–98. Muhajir ties to India have also been regarded with suspicion, heightened in Karachi by the
emergence of the Muhajir Qaumi Movement since the 1980s. For instance, a statement
by Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan, that the people of Karachi
would help the Indian Army if it were to attack Sind, led to staunch declarations that muhajirs had “burnt all their boats” when they came to Pakistan. See Sultan Rafi, “Muhajir
ke nam ka istehsal,” Jang, November 25, 1998.
42. I do not have statistics for divided families, although the long lines at Indian
and Pakistani embassies on both sides are clear indications that against all odds, divided
families are still common and still tied to each other. Many well-known public figures
in the subcontinent became members of divided families, although this is usually a
less acknowledged fact of their lives. For instance, Zakir Husain, the third president of
India from 1967 to 1969, had a brother, Mahmud Husain, who went on to become a
minister in the Pakistani government and for whom the Karachi University library is
named. The unani practice of the famous Hamdard Dawakhana of Delhi also became
divided when one brother, Hakim Mohammad Saeed, moved to Karachi, while his older
brother Hakim Abdul Hamid remained in Delhi, and both brothers expanded the unani
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1. muslim exodus from delhi
247
practice into significant educational institutions, the Hamdard Universities, in both cities. The Imams of Jama Masjid in Delhi have come from the Bukhari family, which is
also divided between the two cities. Please note that all names given with excerpts from
interviews are pseudonyms.
43. Mushirul Hasan, “Introduction,” Invented Boundaries, p. 39.
44. Allen Feldman,“Ethnographic States of Emergency,” in Fieldwork Under Fire: Contemporary Studies of Violence and Survival (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995),
p. 228. See for example, Trouillot, Silencing the Past (1995); Shahid Amin, Event, Metaphor,
Memory (1995); Shail Mayaram, Resisting Regimes: Myth, Memory and the Shaping of a Muslim Identity (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997).
45. Trouillot, Silencing the Past, p. 47.
46. See Pervez Hoodbhoy and A. H. Nayyar, “Rewriting the History of Pakistan,” in
Islam, Politics and the State: The Pakistan Experience, ed. M. A. Khan (London: Zed Books,
1985); K. K. Aziz, The Murder of History in Pakistan (Lahore:Vanguard Press, 1993).
1. muslim exodus from delhi
1. Trouillot, Silencing the Past, p. 149.
2. E. Valentine Daniel and John Chr. Knudsen, eds., Mistrusting Refugees (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1995), p. 1.
3. Julie Peteet, “Transforming Trust: Dispossession and Empowerment among Palestinian Refugees,” in Mistrusting Refugees, p. 171.
4. “Nehru’s tryst with destiny,” Indian Express, August 15, 1947, p. 7.
5. Dipankar Gupta suggests that 10,000 Muslims were killed in this violence. Dipankar Gupta, “The Indian Diaspora of 1947: The Political and Ethnic Consequences
of Partition with Special Reference to Delhi,” in Communalism in India: History, Politics
and Culture, ed. K. N. Panikkar (New Delhi: Manohar, 1991). Gyanendra Pandey’s more
recent account of the Delhi violence puts the figure of Muslim casualties as between
20,000 and 25,000. Gyanendra Pandey, “Partition and Independence in Delhi, 1947–48,”
Economic and Political Weekly, September 6, 1997, p. 2263. Quote is from “The Indian
Situation: A Personal Note” by Lord Ismay, October 5, 1947, as reported in Pandey,
Remembering Partition, p. 128. The chapter “Folding the National into the Local: Delhi,
1947–1948,” pp. 121–51, in Remembering Partition, provides a different kind of account of
the Delhi violence from the perspective of diverse observers.
6. Annual Report on Evacuation, Relief and Rehabilitation of Refugees: Sept., 1947–August,
1948, Ministry of Relief and Rehabilitation, GOI, New Delhi, 1949, p. 1. Maulana Azad
praised Mountbatten for applying his military training to swiftly deal with the crisis by
setting up the Emergency Committee. Azad, India Wins Freedom, p. 230.
7. See Deborah Poole, Unruly Order: Power and Cultural Identity in the High Provinces of
Southern Peru (Boulder:Westview Press, 1994); Daniel, Charred Lullabies (1996); Fernando
Coronil and Julie Skurski, “Dismembering and Remembering the Nation: The Semantics of Political Violence in Venezuela,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 33, no. 2
(1991): 288–337; Allen Feldman, Formations of Violence:The Narrative of the Body and Political Terror in Northern Ireland (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991); Pandey, “The
Prose of Otherness” (1994); Butalia, The Other Side of Silence (1998).
8. Timothy Mitchell, “Society, Economy and the State Effect,” in State/Culture: State
Formation after the Cultural Turn, ed. G. Steinmetz (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000),
p. 90.
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248
1. muslim exodus from delhi
9. In particular, see Coronil and Skurski, “Dismembering and Remembering,” pp.
296–99; and Pandey, “The Prose of Otherness,” p. 189.
10. Forthnightly Reports, Chief Commissioner Sahibzada Khurshid to R.N. Bannerjee,
Secretary, MHA, September 25, 1947, DSA CC 1/47/C, p. 78.
11. Azad, India Wins Freedom, pp. 228–29.
12. Percival Spear, A History of India (Delhi: Penguin, 1992), p. 238.
13. Datta, “Punjabi Refugees and the Urban Development of Greater Delhi,” p. 442.
Although I found some suggestions that the RSS were responsible for the “disturbances”
or that it was “organized,” yet these suggestions are not part of standardized accounts of
the September violence. See, for instance, Sahibzada Khurshid to Deputy Commissioner
M. S. Randhawa, October 17, 1947, DSA CC 60/47-C, p. 4.
14. On the civilian police, see CAI, November 19, 1947, Q102. For partisanship of
the police, see K.T. Shankara, President, New Delhi District Congress Committee to
Acharya Kripalani, President, AICC, September 22, 1947, AICC G-7, 1946–7, pp. 113–16.
It was suggested that the deserters had taken refuge in Purana Qila in the belief that they
would get safe passage to Pakistan as well as employment there, and despite attempts to
assure their safety, as well as inform them of a lack of available jobs in the Pakistan police,
they could not be convinced to return to their duties. Meeting of ECC, September 17,
1947, MP File 131A, pp. 21–22.
15. Writing about torture, Elaine Scarry and E. Valentine Daniel have both shown
how the experience of extreme physical pain not only resists language but actually destroys it. Their work on silence produced by terror helps us understand the inability to
put an experience of intense violence into words. Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The
Making and Unmaking of the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); Daniel,
Charred Lullabies (1996).
16. Khurshid to Bannerjee, September 25, 1947, DSA CC 1/47/C, p. 78.
17. Meeting of the ECC, September 24, 1947, MP File 52B, p. 39.
18. Tan and Kudaisya, Aftermath of Partition in South Asia, p. 199.
19. On perceived Muslim League propaganda, see Meeting of the Emergency Committee of the Cabinet (ECC hereafter), MP File 52B, p. 34. On Zakir Husain’s visit, see
Meeting of the ECC, September 17, 1947, MP File 131A, p. 20. This is also noted in
Khurshid to Bannerjee, September 25, 1947, CC 1/47/C, p. 78. A number of cases where
officials sent Muslims to camps were reported in the ECC. For instance, Sir Robert
Lockhart noted that “many people of all types had been ordered to go to these camps.”
Meeting of the ECC, September 12, 1947, MP File 131A, p. 41. Mr. Patel reported that
forty truckloads of Muslim refugees had been sent to the camps from Gurgaon by the
superintendent of police there. Meeting of the ECC, October 3, 1947, MP File 131C, p.
69. For instance, Major General Cariappa “was led to believe that a very large number of
those who had gone to the camps would return to their homes if some measures to ensure their security were taken.” Meeting of the ECC, September 17, 1947, MP File 131A,
p. 20. Requests for safety by various groups of Muslims was discussed on October 3, 1947,
MP File 131C, p. 69. This also included appeals for supplies of food rations, as Muslims
were unable to get food supplies, and when ration shops did open some shopkeepers
refused to sell supplies to Muslims. Meeting of the ECC, September 20, 1947, MP File
131A, p. 2, and September 22, 1947, MP File 52B, p. 52.
20. See Meeting of the ECC, September 17, 1947, MP File 131A, pp. 21–22; September 18, 1947, MP File 52B; September 20, 1947, MP File 131A, p. 2; September 24, 1947,
MP File 131B, p. 65.
21. Meeting of the ECC, September 18, 1947, MP File 52B.
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1. muslim exodus from delhi
249
22. The categorical term the Census of 1951 used was “displaced persons,” for by
this time the shift in nomenclature had taken place. This figure probably underestimates
the number of displaced persons, as there were probably many who did not register
themselves as such.
23. Meeting of the ECC, September 24, 1947, MP File 131B, p. 66.
24. Annual Report on Evacuation, Relief and Rehabilitation of Refugees: Sept. 1947–August,
1948, M/o R&R, GOI, New Delhi, 1949, p. 21.
25. Khurshid to Bannerjee October, 11, 1947, DSA CC 1/47/C, p. 83.
26. Meeting of the ECC, September 20, 1947, MP File 131A, p. 2.
27. “Buzdali ya bebasi,” Jang, August 30, 1948.
28. CAI, February 11, 1948, Question 239.
29. CAI, November 29, 1947, p. 867; p. 920; p. 872.
30. Ibid., p. 872.
31. CAI, February 11, 1948, Question 239.
32. “Confidential,” Randhawa to Bannerjee, October 13, 1947, DSA CC 60/47C, p. 8; November 26, 1947, CC 60/47-C, p. 33; December 20, 1947, CC 60/47-C;
October 17, 1947, CC 60/47-C, p. 4. See also Khurshid to Randhawa, October 17, 1947,
CC 60/47-C, p. 4.
33. Randhawa to Khurshid, December 22, 1947, DSA CC 60/47-C, p. 46.
34. Randhawa to Bannerjee, December 20, 1947, DSA CC 60/47-C; November 26,
1947, CC 60/47-C, p. 33; March 23, 1948, CC 60/47-C, p. 84; Randhawa to Khurshid,
December 14, 1947, CC 60/47-C, pp. 42–43.
35. Maulana Habibur Rehman to Deputy IG Police, January 14, 1948; “Misc Complaints: Alleged Harassment of Muslims in the Sadar Bazar Area on January 13, 1948,”
DSA File No PXI(50)/genl.
36. Randhawa to Bannerjee, October 13, 1947, DSA CC 60/47-C, p. 8.
37. Abdul Ghafoor to Rajendra Prasad, n.d., AICC G-7, 1946–47, pp. 5–6.
38. Pandey, “Partition and Independence,” p. 2263.
39. Although these camps received some government assistance by way of food and
medical supplies, their “management” remained with voluntary Muslim organizations.
40. Meeting of the ECC, October 7, 1947, MP File 131C, p. 62; October 17, 1947,
MP File 131C, p. 46; October 31, 1947, p. 20. For analysis of attacks on trains, see Swarna
Aiyar, “August Anarchy: The Partition Massacres in Punjab, 1947,” in Freedom, Trauma,
Continuities, pp. 15–38.
41. Meeting of the ECC, September 17, 1947, MP File 131A, p. 20. One tap, see
Meeting of the ECC, September 20, 1947, ibid., p. 16. Indian government takes over
camp, see Meeting of the ECC, September 11, 1947, MP File 52A, p. 78; September 17,
1947, MP File 131A, p. 20. Muslim guard, see Meeting of the ECC, September 12, 1947,
MP File 131A, p. 41.
42. Malkki, “Refugees and Exile,” p. 498.
43. Meeting of the ECC, September 17, 1947, MP File 131A, p. 20.
44. Anees Begum Kidwai, Azadi ki Chaon Mein (New Delhi: National Book Trust,
1990), p. 56.
45. Meeting of the ECC, September 12, 1947, MP File 52A, p. 84.
46. Muslim policemen in camp, see Meeting of the ECC, September 18, 1947, MP
File 52B. On controlling movements, see Meeting of the Delhi Emergency Committee,
September 29, 1947, MP File 131B, p. 8. It was noted that the numbers of refugees in
Purana Qila and Humayun’s Tomb remained the same since “refugees are not permitted
to leave the camps except with a permit which is rarely issued.” For discussion of “no
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250
1. muslim exodus from delhi
return movement” possible from camps to the city, see Meeting of the ECC, September
20, 1947, MP File 131A, p. 2; September 21, 1947, MP File 52B, p. 20; October 3, 1947,
MP File 131C, p. 70. There were cholera epidemics in almost all refugee camps in Delhi
and in both sides of the Punjab.
47. Pandey, “Partition and Independence,” p. 2263.
48. Meeting of the ECC, September 20, 1947, MP File 131A, p. 15; and September
17, 1947, MP File 131A, p. 20.
49. John Knudsen, “When Trust Is on Trial: Negotiating Refugee Narratives,” in
Mistrusting Refugees, p. 22.
50. Daniel and Knudsen, Mistrusting Refugees, p. 3.
51
. On arranging census, see Meeting of the ECC, September 12, 1947, MP File 52A,
p. 84; and September 12, 1947, MP File 131A, p. 41. For K. C. Neogy’s remarks, see Meeting of the ECC, September 21, 1947, MP File 52B, p. 21. On estimations, see Meeting
of the ECC, September 24, 1947, MP File 131B, p. 65; October 17, 1947, MP File 131C,
p. 46; “Meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee of the ECC to report on evacuation of refugees,” September 25, 1947, MP File 131B, p. 35; “Appendix ‘A’ to the ECC,” September
23, 1947; Item “Muslim Refugee Camps,” MP File 131C, p. 33.
52. Sumit Sarkar, Modern India, 1885–1947 (Madras: Macmillan India Ltd., 1983), p.
437.
53. Khurshid to Bannerjee, October 11, 1947, DSA CC 1/47/C, p. 83.
54. ‘Azadi!-Aman!-Zindagi!: Jama Masjid ke munbr se Maulana Abul Kalam Azad ki
ek dardnak cheekh: Sitare tut gaye, suraj chamak raha hai, utho aur us ke kirane chuo,”
Medina, Bijnor, November 2, 1947, No. 80, p. 32.
55. Khurshid to Bannerjee, November 10, 1947, DSA CC 1/47-Conf C. See also
interview with Mr. M.N. Masud by Hari Dev Sharma, NMML Oral History Transcript
218, November 19, 1973, p. 8. Masud was Azad’s secretary and here remembers Azad’s
efforts to convince Muslims to stay in Delhi.
56. Azad, India Wins Freedom, pp. 236–37.
57. G. D. Khosla, Memory’s Gay Chariot: An Autobiographical Narrative (Allied, 1985), as
quoted in Pandey, “Partition and Independence,” p. 2262.
58. Meeting of the ECC, MP File 131C, p. 19.
59. The Cabinet was aware of conditions for Muslims in Delhi, as an officer of the
Pakistan government brought back reports of Muslim exodus into camps, the occupation of their homes, the desertion of the Muslim policemen, and so on. I mention this
here to emphasize that the Pakistan government’s position on Muslims from Delhi was
formulated with this knowledge. Meeting of the Emergency Committee of the Cabinet
(PECC hereafter), September 16, 1947, NDC File No. 58/CF/47, p. 7-A.
60. It was the perception of the PECC that the violence in the Punjab was entirely
propelled by the Sikhs since they had the intention of forming a Sikh state based on Jullundur. This is repeated in almost all the Pakistani documents on the Punjab violence.
61. Report by Ghazanfar Ali Khan on the Punjab situation. He considered the
Boundary Force the “root of all the trouble” because of “its present composition.” Cabinet meeting, August 20, 1947, NDC File No. 23/CF/47.
62. Cabinet meeting, August 28, 1947, ibid.
63. PECC, September 14, 1947, ibid.
64. Cabinet meeting, September 5, 1947, ibid.
65. Cabinet meeting, August 28, 1947, ibid.
66. PECC, September 22, 1947, NDC 93/CF/47, p. 16. Liaqat, after his tour of Punjab with Nehru, reported that “[h]e had asked Pandit Nehru what precisely the India
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government’s policy was on the question of minorities. The latter told him that they
wanted the minorities to stay where they were but events in the Punjab had developed
in such a way that it was impossible to give a sense of security either to the Muslims
in the East Punjab or the non-Muslims in the West Punjab. Consequently, so far as the
Punjab was concerned, there appeared to him [Nehru] to be no alternative to the mass
evacuation of minorities on either side.”
67. CAI, November 18, 1947, Question 11. See also Bhaskar H. Rao, The Story of
Rehabilitation (Delhi: Department of Rehabilitation, 1967), p. 26. Although the displacements in the Punjab came under the rubric of “planned,” this did not mean that they were
always necessary or voluntary. For instance, Muslim refugees in a camp in Ambala refused
to be “evacuated” and pleaded with government officials for protection to remain there.
This incident came up in the ECC, and is just one case which I came across.Yet the fact
that there was an “agreement” meant that the Ambala Muslims had to leave, whether they
wanted to or not. And in turn they had to be received by the Pakistani government.
68. The Pakistani Emergency Committee of the Cabinet was established on September 9, 1947, and it too created a Portfolio for the Evacuation and Rehabilitation of
Refugees at this time. See S. Osman Ali, Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet, September
20, 1947, NDC File No. 31/CF/47.
69. PECC, September 15, 1947, NDC File No 58/CF/47; September 16, 1947, ibid.,
p. 7-A; “Reply to the Aide Memoire,” NDC File 93/CF/47, pp. 27–43.
70. PECC, October 8, 1947, NDC File No 58/CF/47, p. 9.
71. Meeting of the ECC, October 7, 1947, MP File 131C, p. 62.
72. Associated Press, October 7, 1947.
73. Meeting of the ECC, October 7, 1947, MP File 131C, p. 62.
74. “Maghribi Izla ke Musalman,” Medina, Bijnor, October 17, 1947, No. 76, p. 32.
2. hindu exodus from karachi
1. Kishwar Naheed, “Censorship,” in We Sinful Women: Contemporary Urdu Feminist
Poetry, ed. and trans. Rukhsana Ahmad (New Delhi: Rupa & Co., 1994), p. 51.
2. Since the emergence of the Muhajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) in the 1980s,
muhajir has acquired a new political charge as a category of identity. However, in its early
usage it operated as a governmental category alongside other categories of identity like
“panaghir,” “Hindustani,” “Dilliwalle,” “UPwalle,” “Hyderabadi,” etc.
3. Hijra was also not supported by most of the north Indian ulam’a, who were largely
opposed to the creation of Pakistan. For a discussion on hijra see Muhammad Khalid
Masud, “The Obligation to Migrate: The Doctrine of Hijra in Islamic Law,” in Muslim Travellers: Pilgrimage, Migration, and the Religious Imagination, ed. D.E. and J. Piscatori
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), pp. 29–39.
4. Census of Pakistan, 1951, vol. 1, pp. 87–89. Omar Khalidi argues that the 1951 Census underrepresents the numbers of muhajirs in Sind because many muhajirs attempted to
evade this categorization. Khalidi, “From Torrent to Trickle,” pp. 40–41.
5. “Census of 1951,” NDC 133/CF/48.
6. Fortnightly Reports, Francis Mudie to Lord Wavell, March 7, 1947, and June 7, 1947,
IOR MSS E 164/42, pp. 75, 101.
7. Jang, January 10, 1948.
8. Ghulam Husain Hidayatullah to Jinnah, September 11, 1947, NDC D.O. No. C611, p. 117.
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2. hindu exodus from karachi
9. Arif Hasan, “The Growth of a Metropolis,” in Karachi: Megacity of Our Times, p. 174.
See all the other essays in this edited collection. Kamal’s edited collection in Urdu, Karachi ki Kahani, has a number of essays by former Hindu residents of Karachi, but none
examine the question of this massive exodus.
10. Sarah Ansari, “Partition, Migration, and Refugees: Responses to the Arrival of
Muhajirs in Sind during 1947–48,” South Asia 18, special issue (1995): 95–108. This essay
is now part of a monograph, Life After Partition: Migration, Community, and Strife in Sindh,
1947–1962 (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2005).
11. Dr. Choithram P. Gidwani to Rajendra Prasad, December 3, 1947, NAI RP Papers 11-P/49, p. 1; Gidwani to Nehru, October 4, 1947, AICC G-16, 1947–1948, p. 228.
See also CAI November 27, 1947, p. 790, and “What Is Happening in Sind—Weekly
Diary,” n.d., NAI RPP Papers 11-P/49, p. 5.
12. Harijan departures, see SPAI, November 1, 1947, p. 496. Hindu businesses, see
SPAI, September 27, 1947, No. 39, p. 445, and October 11, 1947, p. 467.
13. Syed Hashim Reza, Hamari Manzil: An Autobiography of Syed Hashim Reza (Karachi: Mustafain & Murtazain Ltd., 1991), p. 80.
14. SPAI, September 27, 1947, No. 39, p. 461.
15. CAP, April 6, 1951, p. 907.
16. Ansari, “Partition, Migration, and Refugees,” p. 100.
17. Fortnightly Reports, Mudie to Mountbatten, June 7, 1947, IOR MSS E 164/42, p.
101. Also in SPAI, September 6, 1947.
18. Fortnightly Reports, Mudie to Wavell, February 24, 1947, IOR MSS E 164/42, p.
72.
19. Ibid., p. 76.
20. On Sind University Bill, Fortnightly Reports, Mudie to Mountbatten, March 25,
1947, and June 26, 1947, IOR MSS E 164/42; Sind Landholders Mortgage Bill, ibid.,
April 7, 1947, pp. 85–86.
21. The pamphlet was written by Parsam V. Tahilrami, secretary of the Sind Assembly
Congress Party, and was published in November 1947 to persuade the Indian state to
intervene in Sind.
22. Reza, Hamari Manzil, pp. 95–96.
23. “Unrealities,” Hindustan Times, March 27, 1948. In India there were debates on
“whether the fears of Sind Hindus are real or wholly imaginary.”
24. Liaqat Ali Khan’s speech in CAP on December 16, 1948, pp. 4–5. Ansari also
outlines similar problems through other sources. Sind Maintenance of Public Safety
Ordinance, in NDC File 87/CF/47.
25. CAI, February 3, 1948, Question 55. Nehru’s statement of policy was a reply to
Giani Gurmukh Singh Musafar. The “Sind question” on whether the Indian government should do more for the Hindus who wanted to leave Sind came up several times
for discussion in the CAI. See February 3, 1948; February 11, 1948; and April 6, 1948.
26. It was argued in a note to the Pakistani Cabinet that the Indian High Commission was distributing money to halis, dhobis, and sweepers, to pay their fare by ship to
Bombay. However, the Indian High Commission denied this as a matter of practice. In
Ahmad Ali, “Summary to Cabinet Ministers,” December 18, 1947, NDC 217/CF/47.
The issue of free passages is mentioned by Ansari, and in my interviews in Bombay with
a few former residents of Karachi, one of them recalled the availability of such free passages, although none of them had traveled on one.
27. High Commissioner of India in Pakistan to Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
Commonwealth Relations, December 3, 1947, NDC 217/CF/47.
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2. hindu exodus from karachi
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28. Patel to Parmanand Trehan, July 16, 1947, in Durga Das, Sardar Patel’s Correspondence, 1945–50 (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1973), p. 289. As quoted in
Pandey, Remembering Partition, p. 626.
29. Rao, The Story of Rehabilitation, pp. 22–26.
30. Annual Report on Evacuation, Relief and Rehabilitation of Refugees: September, 1947–
August 1948, M/o R&R. GOI, New Delhi, 1949, p. 5. It needs to be noted that, unlike
the Punjab, this “planned” evacuation was not based on intergovernmental agreement
and did not include an “exchange” of people.
31. SPAI, August 23, 1947; October 4, 1947; October 11, 1947; September 27, 1947;
September 20, 1947.
32. Homi K. Bhabha, “By Bread Alone: Signs of Violence in the Mid-Nineteenth
Century,” in The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), p. 286.
33. SPAI, September 8, 1947; November 8, 1947; December 27, 1947.
34. SPAI, September 13, 1947.
35. M. U. Abbasi, New Sind, AICC G-16, 1947–1948, p. 208.
36. Choithram P. Gidwani to Liaquat Ali Khan, September 13, 1947, AICC G-16,
1947–1948, p. 129.
37. Letter to Kripalani, October 10, 1947, AICC G-16, 1947–1948, p. 144.
38. Letter to Kripalani, n.d., AICC G-16, 1947–1948.
39. “What is happening in Sind,” Weekly Diary, December 2, 1947, NAI RP Papers
11-P/49, p. 5, and AICC G-16, 1947–1948, p. 29.
40. CAP, April 6, 1951, p. 897.
41. Puj Hindu General Panchayat Shikarpur to Kripalani, November 4, 1947, and
Piece Goods Merchants Association Ltd. to Kripalani, September 20, 1947, AICC G-16,
1947–1948, p. 77.
42. Shamdas s/o Dewan Dewandas Ajbani to Kripalani, n.d., AICC G-16, 1947–1948,
p. 82; N. R. Malkani to Nehru, October 6, 1947, AICC G-16, 1947–1948, pp. 198–99.
43. The fate of Karachi Port Trust employees is discussed in CAI, November 27,
1947, p. 790.
44. Tuljaram Valammal Thadhani to Kripalani, Karachi, October 20, 1947, AICC G16, 1947–1948, p. 113.
45. President Sarva Hindu Sind Panchayat to Kripalani, November 11, 1947, AICC
G-16, 1947–1948, p. 85.
46. “Makanat aur panaghir,” Jang, October 18, 1947, p. 2.
47. Tan and Kudaisya, Aftermath of Partition in South Asia, p. 179. Tan and Kudaisya
argue that although a number of cities were suggested as a possible capital for the new
country, including Dhaka and Multan, Karachi was chosen because it was offered by the
Sind Muslim League, and that the fact that it was Jinnah’s birthplace was incidental.
48. Fortnightly Reports, Mudie to Mountbatten, July 29, 1947, and July 9, 1947, IOR
MSS E 164/42.
49. Tan and Kudaisya, Aftermath of Partition, p. 179.
50. Reza, Hamari Manzil, p. 84.
51. See Hamida Khuhro,“The Capital of Pakistan,” and Anwar Mooraj,“Being Young
in the Fifties,” in Karachi: Megacity of Our Times, pp. 95–112 and pp. 357–38; Zeenat Hisam,
“Guzare din, guzarte din,” in Karachi ki Kahani 2, pp. 151–58.
52. Fortnightly Reports, Mudie to Mountbatten, June 26, 1947, IOR MSS E 164/42.
53. “Ghamzadah gharib clerk ki kahani Pakistan mein,” Jang, December 6, 1947.
54. Fortnightly Reports, Mudie to Wavell, March 19, 1947, IOR MSS E 164/42.
55. PECC, September 10, 1947, NDC File no. 69/CF/47.
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254
2. hindu exodus from karachi
56. SPAI, September 20, 1947, and September 27, 1947.
57. Ghulam Husain Hidayatullah to Jinnah, September 11, 1947, NDC File No. 69/
CF/47, p. 117.
58. This image of footpaths of the city filled with people came up again and again in
interviews. In 1954 it was estimated that 250,000 people were still living on the streets.
59. For instance, in “Nadan dost,” Jang, December 28, 1947, and Jang, February 15,
1948.
60. Editorial, Jang, December 21, 1947.
61. Jang, October 26, 1947, p. 2.
62. “Rent controller Karachi ke daftar mein hungama,” Jang, November 5, 1947.
63. Jang, October 24, 1947, p. 2.
64. “Pakistan mein gadaron ki hosala afzaı, kiya hukumat-e-Sind sun rahi hai,” Jang,
November 24, 1947
65. “Chand tajaweez,” Jang, November 13, 1947, p. 2; letter to editor, Jang, October
26, 1947, p. 2.
66. “Nadan dost,” Jang, December 28, 1947; “Makanat aur panaghir,” Jang, October
18, 1947, p. 2.
67. “Makanat aur panaghir,” Jang, October 18, 1947, p. 2.
68. Letter to editor, Jang, November 17, 1947, p. 2.
69. “Makanat aur panaghir,” Jang, October 18, 1947, p. 2.
70. “Makan,” Jang, October 29, 1947.
71. Jang, December 12, 1947, p. 1.
72. Jang, January 10, 1948; Jang, January 13, 1948. In CAI February 3, 1948, Question 54. Nehru, reporting on the violence in Karachi, noted that although only seventy
“non-Muslims” were killed, 70 percent of their homes had been completely looted.
Khuhro’s speech was reported in Jang, January 23, 1948.
73. See Jang, January 13, 1948; Jang, January 15, 1948, p. 1;“Aman” and “Mister Khuhro
ka qabil-e-tehseen rawaiya,” Jang, January 15, 1948; “Hinduon ka inkhila,” Jang, January
16, 1948.
74. Ansari, “Partition, Migration, and Refugees,” pp. 100–1.
75. E. de V. Moss, “Note for Cabinet on the transfer of surplus refugees from West
Punjab to Sind,” Ministry of Refugees, December 31, 1947, NDC File No. 80/CF/47,
p. 6-A-D.
76. “A Note on Statistics of the Refugees and Evacuees Problem,” which is a part of
this larger file, has also been reproduced in The Journey to Pakistan: A Documentation on
Refugees of 1947 (Islamabad: National Documentation Center, 1993), pp. 15–18.
77. James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human
Condition Have Failed (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1998), p. 3.
78. There are wide-ranging criticisms of “overpopulation” and “population control”
in the literature on “development.” However, for an engaging critique of concepts of
“population” in the making of “national economy,” see Timothy Mitchell, Rule of Experts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), pp. 212–13.
79. Meeting of the Cabinet, January 27, 1948, NDC File No. 80/CF/47, p. 9-A; and
M.A. Khuhro to Jinnah, January 28, 1948, NDC File No. 80/CF/47, p. 10–10A. This
politics of entitlement can be located broadly in a history of Sindhi nationalism. Mudie
noted that “Sind for the Sindhis” sentiment had already begun to emerge before Partition when Bihari refugees arrived in February 1947. On May 22, 1948, when Karachi
was made a centrally administered area, Sindhi politicians complained that Sind was being beheaded, and embittered provincial relations with the center. See Ansari, “Partition,
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Migration, and Refugees,” p. 103; Tan and Kudaisya, Aftermath of Partition, p. 182; Ayesha
Jalal, The State of Martial Rule (Lahore:Vanguard, 1991), p. 89; H. M. Kagi, Administrative
Responses to Urban Growth: Karachi, Pakistan (Ph.D. diss., Syracuse University, 1964).
80. CAP, March 6, 1948. See also Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah, Huseyn Shaheed
Suhrawardy: A Biography (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 68–70. Ikramullah
calls it a “Speech that Cost a Career.” It led to a debate about his membership in the
Constituent Assembly, and while some people suggested that he be debarred and his seat
be declared vacant, others argued that there were no rules in place for debarring him, and
that there were others with “Indian nationality” holding responsible posts in the Pakistan
government. (I discuss the case of Mr. Ismail, the Pakistani high commissioner in Delhi,
later in this book.) A resolution was passed that anyone who had not taken up residence
in Pakistan within six months of the resolution would have to discontinue as a member of
the Assembly. According to Ikramullah, a number of obstacles were placed in Suhrawardy’s
way, and ultimately he did not want to leave his ailing father in Calcutta, which resulted
in his seat being officially declared vacant on March 2, 1949.
81. “Karachi ke fasadat Hindustan ki Muslim aqliyat ki dushman hain,” Jang, January
11, 1948.
82. “Hindustan mein Musalman qaidi,” Jang, February 9, 1948.
83. Mashriqi Pakistan,” Al-Jamiat, October 24, 1948.
84. Al-Jamiat, November 11, 1948, p. 2; Al-Jamiat, March 3, 1949; Al-Jamiat, June 14,
1948.
85.The exchange of populations was an idea circulated in many imaginaries of Partition, and not only Muslim imaginaries of Partition. That many clamored for such an
exchange of people can be seen in enraged letters and schemes sent to AICC. See AICC
CL –10 (1946–1947). An example is Jwala Prasad Singhal’s “Prepare for Logical Consequences.” See also Pandey, “Can a Muslim Be an Indian?,” pp. 613–14.
86. “Tabadala-e-abadi ki zarorat,” Jang, November 14, 1947.
87. “Aqliyaton ki hifazat,” Jang, November 19, 1947.
88. “Muslim League ki taqseem ka asar,” letter to the editor, Jang, December 23,
1947.
89. “Pakistan aur Hindi Musalman,” Jang, August 18, 1948.
90. “Aqliyaton ke masle ka wahid hal,” Jang, August 20, 1948.
91. See Ayesha Jalal, Self and Sovereignty (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 388–422.
92. “Hindi Musalman,” Jang, October 7, 1949.
3. refugees, boundaries, citizens
1. Pablo Neruda, “Goodbyes,” Fully Empowered, trans. Alistair Reid (London: Souvenir Press, 2005), p. 57.
2. Trouillot has been in general the most productive for me in thinking through
silences. For his discussion of “unthinkable,” see Trouillot, Silencing the Past, p. 27.
3. See Torpey, Invention of the Passport (2000); Mongia, “Race, Nationality, Mobility”
(1999).
4. The permit system was then put into effect on July 19, only five days after it was
announced. See CAI, August 17, 1948, Question 266.
5. “Statement on Partition made by the Deputy Prime Minister in the Constituent Assembly of India on the 12th of December, 1947,” MP File 104. This decision was
probably taken by the Partition Council on the assumption that significant Hindu and
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3. refugees, boundaries, citizens
Sikh minorities would be living in Pakistan, as there would be Muslims in India, and
unrestricted movement would be necessary to reassure minorities on both sides. Later I
discuss how, as part of the Nehru-Liaqat Pact on religious minorities,“freedom of movement” was considered a necessary part of reassuring minorities.
6. CAI, August 10, 1948, Question 79; Al-Jamiat, September 25, 1948, p. 3. This ordinance was promulgated in September 1948 and subsequently passed as an Act by the
Indian Parliament on April 22, 1949. For text of the ordinance see AJR Journal, 1949,
pp. 102–3.
7. Al-Jamiat, October 2, 1948, p. 2; for text of the Pakistani Ordinance, see PLD, 1949,
vol. 1, p. 14.
8. Al-Jamiat, October 2, 1948, p. 2.
9. Letter to the Editor, Al-Jamiat, September 6, 1948, p. 2. Maulana Ahmad Saeed of
the Jamiat-e-Ulama-e-Hind issued a press note assuring Muslims that the permit system
was only a temporary measure on July 24, 1948. In CID Weekly Reports, July 24, 1948,
DSA 68/47-C.
10. “Aman,” Editorial, Jang, January 15, 1948.
11. Azad, India Wins Freedom, pp. 238–40.
12. Pandey suggests that the question of Muslim loyalty and belonging found an
uneasy resolution when “exhaustion” coupled with Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination in
January 1948 “brought a good deal of northern India back to its senses and marked a
turning point in the debate between ‘secular nation’ and ‘Hindu nation.’” Although this
book makes the case that the “Muslim question” took a much longer time to resolve,
I interpret this “turning point” as one of perception, which may have influenced the
return movement.
13. United Kingdom High Commission, Delhi, to Commonwealth Relations Office,
May 14–21, 1948, IOR L/WS/1/1599, Opdom 39, para. 14; May 21–28, 1948, Opdom
41, para. 10; July 2–9, 1948, Opdom 54, para. 22.
14. Weekly Reports, CID Delhi, May 1, 1948, DSA, 68/47-C; Randhawa to Khurshid,
April 30, 1948, DSA F56/48-Conf C, p. 1; June 1, 1948, DSA CC 60/47-C, p. 170; July
17, 1948, DSA 68/47-C.
15. Weekly Reports, CID Delhi, May 1, 1948, DSA 68/47-C; Diary of Superintendent
of Police, CID Delhi, March 27, 1948, DSA CC 60/47-C, p. 101; Source Report, Inspector-General of Police, Delhi, May 15, 1948, DSA CC 55/48-Conf C, p. 9 and May 10,
1948, DSA CC 55/48-Conf C, p. 6.
16. Hindu and Sikh feelings are described as “taxing the public mind” in Weekly Reports, CID Delhi, April 17, 1948, and as “agitat[ing] the public mind” in Weekly Reports,
CID Delhi, May 1, 1948, DSA 68/47-C.
17. Police and deputy commissioner reports are replete with instances of agitation
against the government. On one occasion a refugee leader declared that if the minister
of Relief and Rehabilitation did not solve their housing problem he would fast unto
death before his residence. In CID Weekly Reports, April 3, 1948, DSA, 68/47-C.
18. Randhawa to Khurshid, June 14, 1948, DSA 68/47-C.
19. Randhawa to Khurshid, June 1, 1948, DSA CC 60/47-C, p. 170.
20. Azad additionally notes that prior to August 15, 1947, there had been a suggestion
to send Randhawa elsewhere, but the “leading citizens of Delhi, especially a large section
of Muslims, requested that he be retained as he was perceived to be fair-minded and
strong.” Azad, however, claims that the communal violence of the time deeply affected
Randhawa, so that “the very Muslims who had a year ago pleaded for his retention now
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257
came and pleaded that he was not giving the necessary protection to the Muslim citizens
of Delhi.” Azad, India Wins Freedom, pp. 231–32.
21. Even though most of Khurshid’s kin network, his brothers and sisters and their
children, migrated piecemeal to Pakistan after Partition, he and his children chose to
remain in India.
22. Randhawa to Khurshid, March 29, 1948, DSA CC 60/47-C, p. 86.
23. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, “fifth column” refers to a “clandestine
group or faction of subversive agents who attempt to undermine a nation’s solidarity
by any means at their disposal. The term is credited to Emilio Mola Vidal, a Nationalist
general during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). As four of his army columns moved
on Madrid, the general referred to his militant supporters within the capital as his ‘fifth
column,’ intent on undermining the loyalist government from within.” See http://www.
britannica.com/eb/article-9034225/fifth-column
24. Randhawa to Khurshid, April 30, 1948, DSA, F56/48-Conf C, p. 1.
25. Source Report, May 12, 1948, DSA CC 55/48-Conf C, p. 8.
26. Letter from G. V. Bedeker, Deputy Secretary, MHA, GOI, to Khurshid, June 19,
1948, DSA F56/48-Conf C, p. 2.
27. Extract from a Secret Report, Intelligence Bureau, MHA, June 11, 1948, DSA
F56/48-Conf C.
28. Fortnightly Reports, Shankar to Bannerjee, March 10, 1948, and July 27, 1948, IOR
L/P&J/5/288.
29. CAI, March 22, 1948, Question 922.
30. “Muhajireen ki hindustan wapasi,” letter to the editor, Jang, March 27, 1948.
31. “Wapis ja rahe hai,” Jang, March 29, 1948.
32. UKHC Pakistan to Commonwealth Relations Office, Inward Telegram, April 14,
1948, Opdom 29, para. 7; and April 17, 1948, Opdom 27, para. 5, IOR L/WS/1/1599.
33. CAP, May 20, 1948, Question 190.
34. CAP, May 25, 1948, Question 7.
35. “Note for the Cabinet,” Ministry of Refugees, August 9, 1948, NDC 210/CF/48.
This position is reiterated in Meeting of the Cabinet, August 19, 1948, ibid.
36. Meeting of the Cabinet, August 19, 1948, ibid.
37. Meeting of the Cabinet, July 18, 1948, repeated on August 11 and 19, 1948, ibid.
The planned two-way traffic was also discussed in the Indian Constituent Assembly. See
CAI, August 17, 1948, Question 266.
38. “Extract from J. S.’s note on a discussion held by H.M. Interior with the Premiers
of West Punjab and NWFP on August 29, 1948,” August 30, 1948, NDC 210/CF/48.
Discussed in the Meeting of the Cabinet, September 1, 1948, ibid.
39. “Summary for the Cabinet,” October 15, 1949, NDC 210/CF/48. On November
14, 1949, an amendment was made to the Pakistan (Control of Entry) Ordinance to
require permits from persons coming from India via East Pakistan.
40. “Note from the Ministry of Interior,” September 17, 1948, NDC 210/CF/48.
41. “Note for the Cabinet: India’s permit system and consideration of the action to
be taken by Pakistan,” Ministry of Refugees, August 9, 1948, and Meeting of the Cabinet,
October 6, 1948, NDC 210/CF/48.
42. See Willem van Schendel, “Stateless in South Asia: The Making of the
India-Bangladesh Enclaves,” Journal of Asian Studies 61, no. 1. (February 2002): 115–47.
Schendel’s study of the islands of “Indian” and “Pakistani” territory created by the border there shows the complexities of crossing from one village to another in this region.
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258
3. refugees, boundaries, citizens
43. Khwaja Shahabuddin to Liaquat Ali Khan, March 25, 1949, NDC 210/CF/48.
44. “Note,” Ministry of Interior, January 7, 1949, ibid.
45. Ibid.
46. Rajendra Prasad to Pandit Nehru, August 10, 1948, NAI RPP, 14-C/48, pp. 244–
45.
47. Jang, July 18, 1948.
48. Al-Jamiat, January 10, 1949, p. 3. See also Al-Jamiat, March 7, 1949, p. 4; and April
3, 1949, p. 4.
49. Weekly Reports, July 17, 1948, DSA 68/47-C.
50. The Pakistan High Commission also instituted parallel permit variations.
51. CAI, August 17, 1948, Question 266.
52. Jang, May 14, 1949, p. 5.
53. “Changeover from Permit System to Passport and Visa System,” November 24,
1952, MHA 6/38/58-IC, p. 7.
54. Jang, April 8, 1949, p. 8.
55. Fortnightly Reports, Shankar Prasad to Mr. Iengar, August 24, 1948, IOR L/
P&J/5/288; Weekly Reports, September 11, 1948, DSA 68/47-C.
56. Jang, October 2, 1951. In “Permit!,” Jang, December 16, 1951, the writer recounts
the hardships of the permit system, which have not been eased despite inter-dominion
conferences, and demands that a “people’s view” be taken.
57. “Note,” Ministry of Interior, January 7, 1949, NDC 210/CF/48.
58. The ability to make arrests with this amendment is recorded in CID Weekly Reports, September 4, 1948, DSA 68/47-C.
59. See the case of Rochomal Daryanomal v. The Province of West Pakistan PLD, 1960
(W.P.) Karachi, 1950.
60.The remainder of the citizenship laws came into force on January 26, 1950, when
the whole Constitution of India came into force. Later the Indian Citizenship Act of
1955 was passed. See S.K. Agrawala Rao and M. Koteswara, “Nationality and International Law in Indian Perspective,” in Nationality and International Law in Asian Perspective,
ed. K.S. Sik (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1990), p. 74.
61. See Candice Lewis Bredbenner, A Nationality of Her Own: Women, Marriage, and
the Law of Citizenship (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); Suad Joseph, ed.,
Gender and Citizenship in the Middle East (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000);
Mary Ann Tetreault, “Gender, Citizenship and the State in the Middle East,” in Citizenship and the State in the Middle East, ed. N. A. Butenschon, Uri Davis, and Manuel
Hassassian (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000); Kif Augustine-Adams, “She Consents Implicitly: Women’s Citizenship, Marriage, and Liberal Political Theory in Late
Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Argentina,” Journal of Women’s History 13, no.
4 (2002): 8–30.
62. AIR, 1955 Supreme Court 282, p. 285.
63. AIR (38), 1951 Allahabad 16, Badruzzaman v.The State.
64. AIR (39), 1952 Allahabad 257, Shabir Husain v. State of UP and Others.
65. AIR, 1954 Allahabad 458.
66. AIR (38), 1951 Kutch 38, Mandhara Jakab Khalak Dana and Others v. Kutch Govt.
67. AIR, 1954 Bhopal 9, Iqbal Ahmad v. State of Bhopal.
68. AIR, 1954 Supreme Court 229, Ebrahim Vazir Mavat and Others v. The State of
Bombay and Others.
69. Al-Jamiat, November 26, 1952, p. 3.
70. CAI, August 18, 1948. Of the 16,090 that asked to be allowed to stay in In-
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4. economies of displacement
259
dia, 13,018 were noted as reabsorbed. In addition numerous Indian government files
examine the question of Muslim employees who requested reemployment, and a
desire to come back to India. See NAI MHA 30/45/48-Appts, MHA 60/257/48Ests, MHA 70/9/49-Appts, MHA, 1949 70/9-DGS. Of those who “provisionally”
opted for Pakistan and then changed to India, see NAI MHA 68/102/48-Adm and
23/59/48–Est.
71. “Office Memorandum,” MHA, October 20, 1948, “Correspondence re: Government servants whose families are staying in Pakistan,” DSA CC F95/48-C Vol.II.
72. “Memorandum,” MHA, October 29, 1948, ibid.
73. Letter from Sahibzada Aziz Ahmad Khan, November 12, 1948, ibid.
74 Letter from Mubashir Ali, n.d., ibid.
75. Office of CMO to PHB Wilkins, MHA, GOI, September 27, 1949, ibid.
76. PHB Wilkins, MHA to CC, Delhi, June 17, 1949, ibid.
77. Azmatullah to Judge of Small Cause Court, June 3, 1949, ibid.
78. Office of Judge to PHB Wilkins, MHA, June 4, 1949, ibid.
79. Shankar Prasad replied on July 8, 1949, that he would see to it that “no injustice
is done.” Ibid.
80. Azmatullah to VD Dantyagi, JT Sec M/o R and R, July 15, 1949, ibid. He wrote
to see him personally “to explain the whole case with a view to secure early permission
to bring back my family.” On July 27, 1949, he wrote to the home secretary with a list of
all the paperwork he had completed. He argued that “she is only waiting for the grant
of Permanent Permit to return to India.” On August 19, 1949, Azmatullah wrote to the
judge that he had not been able to bring his family and lists all the letters and meetings
he had undertaken toward this effort.
81. Top Secret, January 12, 1950, ibid.
82. MHA to CC Delhi, September 26, 1950, ibid.
4. economies of displacement
1. Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994), p. 56.
2. A body of legislation on displaced persons and their claims also went into place
alongside evacuee property legislation, such as the Indian Displaced Persons Claims Act
of 1950 and the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act of 1954. See
Rao, The Story of Rehabilitation, p. 121.
3. See Sumathi Ramaswamy, The Lost Land of Lemuria, p. 8.
4. “The Property of Refugees,” Minutes of the Joint Defense Council, August 29,
1947, MP File 128.
5. Jyoti Bhusan Das Gupta, Indo-Pak Relations, 1947–55 (Amsterdam: Universiteit van
Amsterdam, 1958).
6. Ibid., p. 191.
7. J.B. Schectman, “Evacuee Property in India and Pakistan,” Pacific Affairs (December
1951): 407.
8. Sardar Hukam Singh, in CAI, August 11, 1952.
9. Peter van der Veer, Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1994), p. 106.
10. See Gupta, “Chapter VI: Evacuee Property,” for details on Indo-Pak negotiations over evacuee property. For an Indian government view of these negotiations, see
Rao, “Negotiations with Pakistan: Immoveable Property,” The Story of Rehabilitation,
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260
4. economies of displacement
pp. 92–112. For a Pakistani view, see Mohammed Ahsan Chaudri, “Evacuee Property in
India and Pakistan,” Pakistan Horizon (June 1957).
11. “Rehabilitation Prospects,” Ministry of Rehabilitation, GOI, 1957, p. 4.
12. CAP, April 6, 1951.
13. Officially “agreed areas” in Pakistan included all of West Pakistan except unadministered agency areas. In India they included East Punjab, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Patiala
and East Punjab States Union, Alwar, Bharatpur, Bikaner, Ajmer-Merwara, Dholpur and
Karauli states, Rajasthan Union, Saurasthra Union, Jaipur and Jodhpur, and districts of
Sahranpur, Dehradun, Meerut, and Muzaffarnagar in UP.
14. CAI, February 11, 1949.
15. Minutes of the Inter-Dominion Conference at Karachi, January 10–13, 1949,
NDC 29/CF/48-III. The Indian view is noted in an “Attachment” for a meeting of the
Committee of the Cabinet for Relief and Rehabilitation on April 12, 1949, where it is
noted that at the Karachi conference no agreement was reached on the definition of the
term “evacuee.” DSA 82/49-Conf B.
16. “Evacuee Property in India,” Ministry of Rehabilitation, GOI, 1961.
17. Ministry of Rehabilitation, GOI, to Chief Commissioner, Delhi, August 24, 1949,
DSA 227, 1947, p. 15; “Form for the application for temporary permit holder. . . .” NAI
MHA 20/50/56-FIII.
18. Ibid.
19. In Bengal, an Evacuee Property Management Board was set up on both sides.
It managed properties only on the request of property owners. Since my research only
focused on Delhi and Karachi, I do not know how this board really functioned.
20. Evacuee Property Amendment Bill, CAI, August 11, 1952.
21. Hukamchand Goyal, The Administration of Evacuee Property Act, 1950 and The Evacuee Interest (Separation) Act, 1951 (Allahabad: Ram Narain Lal Beni Madho Law Publishers,
1964), pp. 72–75.
22. The fact that evacuee property laws became tied to the rehabilitation of another
set of displaced is borne out by the parallel fashion in which amendments were made
to the Pakistan Rehabilitation (Amendment) Bill on April 9, 1951, and again every time
changes were made to evacuee property laws.
23. CAI, June 4, 1951.
24. CAI, 1948, vol. 1, no. 159.
25. CAI, February 25, 1948, Question 474.
26. Goyal, The Administration of Evacuee Property Act, p. 2.
27. A.P. Jain’s statement to the house, in CAI, October 5, 1951. Achhru Ram’s letter
to A.P. Jain, dated September 20, 1951, was presented at the debate.
28. A Web site www.enemyprop.org allowed for the registration of claims until the
end of 2002 by those dispossessed by the British institution of the custodian.
29. Janet Abu-Lughod, “Israeli Settlements in Occupied Arab Lands: Conquest to
Colony,” Journal of Palestine Studies 11, no. 2 (1982): 22; Simha Flapan, “The Palestinian
Exodus of 1948,” Journal of Palestine Studies 16, no. 4 (1987): 18–20. For a more recent and
fuller account, see Michael R. Fischbach, Records of Dispossession: Palestinian Refugee Property and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), pp. 1–80.
Fischbach points out that in 1949 it was stated in the Knesset that the Israeli regulations
“had been based on laws in the Indian subcontinent that dealt with the land permanently left behind by Hindu and Muslim refugees from Pakistan and India, respectively,
in 1947.” Fischbach, Records of Dispossession, p. 22.
30. After 1954 no more properties could be declared evacuee property, but court
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4. economies of displacement
261
cases over those already encompassed by these laws continued, and some continue to
this day.
31. CAI, August 11, 1952.
32. “Evacuee Property in India,” Ministry of Rehabilitation, GOI, 1961.
33. S.J.S. Chhatwal, MEA to Indian Missions, September 7, 1961, NAI MEA 24(1)
LT/61.
34.The brochure claimed that the Indian government had taken back all the Muslim
migrants from UP who had left for Pakistan during the period from February 1, 1950
to May 31, 1950, and had restored their properties to them, as agreed in the NehruLiaqat Pact. However, as I discuss in the next chapter, according to newspaper accounts
in Karachi an extraordinarily large number of Muslims registered to return but only a
fraction were able to do so.
35. This is also the focus of Rao’s narrative of evacuee property in The Story of Rehabilitation.
36. Most of the files on the Custodian of Enemy Property were also destroyed by the
British government, which is why today a Web site invites claims to rebuild the record
on this area of Second World War history.
37.Vas Dev Varma to K.C. Neogy, DSA DC 309/1948, p. 99.
38. Al-Jamiat, January 26, 1949, p. 5.
39. Al-Jamiat, January 29, 1949, p. 2.
40. Al-Jamiat, February 6, 1949, p. 2.
41. Al-Jamiat, June 16, 1949, p. 1. In addition to JUH, a number of Muslim organizations emerged to help with changing evacuee property regulations, such as Anjuman-eIslah and the Muslim Relief Committee, and their announcements also appeared from
time to time in Al-Jamiat.
42. “Musalman malkan-e-jaedad tawajo kare,” Al-Jamiat, August 4, 1949, p. 6.
43. “Jaedad ka masla,” Al-Jamiat, August 31, 1949, p. 3.
44. Jang, December 22, 1949.
45. “UP mein andhergardi,” Jang, February 27, 1951.
46. U. S. Dikshit, Office of the Custodian, to Rameshwar Dayal, Chief Commissioner,
Delhi, November 17, 1948, DSA File, “Measure to stop pugree system in Delhi.”
47. “Pagree System in Mixed Areas,” ibid.
48. Al-Jamiat, August 10, 1952, p. 1.
49. Goyal notes that “an evacuee is not the same as a person who has given up Indian
citizenship. A person might not have lost his Indian citizenship but still may become an
evacuee.” Goyal, The Administration of Evacuee Property Act, pp. 6–7.
50. In Nehru, Letters to the Chief Ministers, 1947–64 (1985), as quoted in Khalidi, “From
Torrent to Trickle,” p. 38.
51. AIR, 1952 Supreme Court 3, 19, Ebrahim Aboobakar and another v. Custodian General of Evacuee Property, New Delhi.
52. AIR, 1953 Supreme Court 298, Ebrahim Aboobaker v. Tek Chand Dolwani. The
court decided that once a person is dead he cannot be declared an evacuee.
53. Ministry of Rehabilitation, GOI, to Custodian of Evacuee Property, Delhi, May
24, 1949, DSA CC 102/49-Conf C.
54. “Hakim Dilbar Hasan Khan’s Property,” DSA CC F70/50-Conf B.
55. “Misc.–Complaints,” DSA DC309/1948, pp. 70–71.
56. “Declaration as Evacuee Property of the Property of Mr. H. Ibrahim in Bombay,”
NAI MEA File No. 62–4/50-Pak II.
57. “Naya tuf an,” Jang, January 13, 1952.
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4. economies of displacement
58. This had far-reaching effects on many Muslim institutions which were based on
awqaf. For instance, many institutions of Urdu in Delhi were initially taken over by the
custodian, but then given over to a body of Muslims constituted by the government.
Although the politicization of awqaf has colonial antecedents, under evacuee property
legislation they underwent changes that need closer examination. See Gregory C. Kozlowski, Muslim Endowments and Society in British India (Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press, 1985).
59. AIR, 1952 Allahabad 813, Ali Ahmad v. Deputy Custodian of EP.
60. Like Delhi, until urban development schemes could expand the city’s housing
capacity, in the initial years the primary source of housing remained the limited houses
“left” by Hindus, although as I have tried to show, many Hindu families did not leave
entirely, in the possible hope of return. When evacuee property laws went into effect,
this meant the dispossession of those who remained; even this meant only 2 lakh of the
original 14 lakh of the region’s minorities.
61. This was later replaced by the Pakistan (Economic Rehabilitation) Ordinance
of 1949 in “General Summary of the Policy and Progress of Rehabilitation of Muslim
Urban Refugees in West Pakistan (excluding West Punjab),” NDC 3/CF/47, and “Note
for the Cabinet by the Ministry of Refugees & Rehabilitation,” NDC 103/CF/48.
62. Report of the Committee on Evacuee Trust Properties Board, vol. 2, GOP, p.
13.
63. The maps of the city still bear names reminiscent of the city’s departed. For instance, Jinnah’s mausoleum is near Guru Mandir, but if you ask someone on the street
where the Mandir is, no one really knows.
64. Jang, August 14, 1948.
65. SPAI, December 27, 1947, p. 570.
66. He also filed suit against the government for their apparent laxity on evacuee
property. This is reported as PLD, 1956 (W.P.) Karachi 533, Maulana Abdul Quddus Bihari
v. Chief Commissioner of Karachi.
67. It ran like a serial, from “Custodian ne . . . ,” Jang, July 8, 1952, “Palace Hotel ka
bank mein ek paisa nahin raha” Jang, July 16, 1952, p. 6; “Palace Hotel ke . . . ,” Jang, September 23, 1952; ”Palace hotel ka muqadama,” Jang, September 25, 1952, p. 6 and so on.
68. “Matroka jaedad ka allotment,” Jang, July 23, 1952, p. 3.
69. “Matrokah amlak ke qanoon par puri tarha amal kiya jae,” Jang, September 19,
1952, p. 6.
70. CAP, January 3, 1950, p. 248, Question 93. The incident reportedly took place on
September 13, 1949.
71. Sind Rent Restriction (Amendment) Bill, CAP, December 24, 1948.
72. The discussion on the bill continued on December 29, 1948.
73. Mahram is anyone who can enter the haram or women’s compartments, while
na-mahram is someone from whom purdah is maintained.
74. I spoke with only one person who had lived under such a scheme. He was housed
in the apartment of an elderly Parsi lady and recalled the awkwardness he felt, for every
time he wanted to go to his room he had to pass through her living room. He moved
out as soon as he found a place of his own, a few months later.
75. Jang, August 14, 1948, p. 1.
76. Jang, August 25, 1948.
77. “General Summary of the Policy and Progress of Rehab of Muslim Urban Refugees in West Pakistan (excluding West Punjab),” NDC 53/CF/47.
78. Reza, Hamari Manzil, pp. 99–100.
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5. passports and boundaries
263
79. “Matroka Amlak,” Jang, February 27, 1951.
80. As most of the city’s Hindu residents left the city and the province, evacuee
property ceased to have relevance as an appropriating institution, and demands were
made that ownership be passed on to muhajirs who had been allotted these properties.
I am uncertain when exactly that happened, for an Evacuee Property Trust came to be
reconstituted in 1960 and to this day manages only charitable, educational, and religious
trusts. It is part of the Ministry of Religious Affairs.
5. passports and boundaries
1. Faiz Ahmad Faiz, “Evening Be Kind,” in The True Subject: Selected Poems of Faiz
Ahmad Faiz, trans. Naomi Lazard (Lahore:Vanguard Books, 1988), p. 87.
2. S. C. Consul, Law of Foreigners, Citizenship, and Passports (Allahabad: Law Book Co.,
1969), p. 1. See also John Torpey, “The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Passport
System,” in Documenting Individual Identity:The Development of State Practices in the Modern
World, ed. Jane Caplan and John Torpey (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001),
pp. 256–70.
3. Ibid., pp. 209–10.
4. There exists a rich literature on “gossip” in anthropology. However, here I simply
draw upon the insight that “gossip” at “the interstices of respectability” is not only used
to negotiate “a world of value and behavior,” but also constitutes a moral community. See
Max Gluckman, “Gossip and Scandal,” Current Anthropology 4, no. 3 (1963): 307–16; Anjan
Ghosh, “Symbolic Speech: Towards an Anthropology of Gossip,” Journal of Indian Anthropology, no. 31 (1996): 251–56; Luise White, “Between Gluckman and Foucault: Historicizing Rumour and Gossip,” Social Dynamics 20, 1 (Winter 1994): 75–92.
5. “Selab-e-Nu,” Jang, May 20, 1951.
6. Why Muslims were coming through Khokrapar was repeatedly discussed in Constituent Assembly debates. See, for example, CAP, February 23, 1949, Question 23.
7. “Disturbances in West Bengal and Assam in February 1950,” CAP, April 1, 1950,
Question 143.
8. As I have not done any research on the eastern border I do not know if this in fact
happened or not. But figures stated in the CAI and CAP subsequently suggest that the
majority did return.
9. CAP, March 1949, pp. 100–1.
10. See Golam Wahed Choudhury, The First Constituent Assembly of Pakistan (Ph.D. diss.,
Columbia University, 1956). Choudhury examines the contending views on Islam and
statehood that emerged in the first Constituent Assembly, and its various committees,
which ultimately made the task of drafting a constitution a very difficult one for Pakistan.
On November 2, 1953, the Pakistani state became the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
11. “Delhi ki batcheet,” Jang, April 9, 1950. In the remainder of this dramatization,
Nehru repeated his invitation to return to the “real problem.” So Liaqat asked him what
the “real problem” to be discussed was. Nehru asked if it wasn’t Kashmir. Liaqat then
pointed out that Kashmir was not the agenda of the Delhi conference. It turned out that
the agenda of the conference had been made by Sardar Patel, and Nehru had forgotten
to pick it up from him. This was probably meant as a commentary on the relationship
between Nehru and Sardar Patel.
12. Parveen Begum, “Uprooted Millions Find a Home,” Pakistan Standard, Independence Day Number, 1954. This article claimed that 230,819 persons had registered to
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5. passports and boundaries
return but only 22,845 had been repatriated. Regardless of how many desired to return,
the Indian official figure for those who did return under the Nehru-Liaqat Pact was
23,991. In A.P. Jain’s statement, CAI, August 11, 1952.
13. UKHC to the Commonwealth Relations Office, Review of Events in Karachi
and Sind for the Period May 7–21, 1950, L/P&J/5/331.
14. “Rehabilitation of Refugees in Karachi and Measures to Check Their Influx,”
CAP, February 23, 1949, Question 23.
15. For Sindhi contestations over Karachi’s separation, see Ansari, Life After Partition,
pp. 74–121.
16. For arguments regarding the strength of muhajirs in the early Pakistani state, see
Khalid B. Sayeed, “The Political Role of Pakistan’s Civil Service,” Pacific Affairs 31, no. 2
(1958): 131–46; Hamza Alavi, “Nationhood and Communal Violence in Pakistan,” Journal
of Contemporary Asia 21, no. 2 (1991): 152–78.
17. “Khwaja Shahabuddin mash-e-rah,” Jang, 10 May 1950; “Muhajireen kyon ate
hein?” Jang, May 6, 1950; “Hukumat-e-Karachi,” Jang, July 2, 1951.
18. “Rehabilitation of Refugees in Karachi and Measures to Check Their Influx,”
CAP, February 23, 1949, Question 23; UKHC to the Commonwealth Relations Office,
April 23–May 6, 1950, L/P&J/5/331/22300/1949; “Yaktarfa hijrat,” Jang, May 5, 1950.
19. “Yaktarfa hijrat,” Jang, May 5, 1950.
20. “Hal,” Jang, September 19, 1951.
21. “95 Thousand,” Jang, December 23, 1950.
22. “Sharamnak!,” Jang, April 14, 1952.
23. “Wapas jane ke bad,” Jang, June 20, 1951.
24. “UP ke muhajireen ki wapasi kyon?,” Jang, June 10, 1951.
25. “UP ke musalman,” Jang, September 21, 1951.
26. Jang, April 15, 1952, p. 3.
27. “Yaktarfa hijrat,” Jang, May 5, 1950.
28. “Muhajireen kyon ate hein?,” Jang, May 6, 1950.
29. “abadkari kaise ho?,” Jang, May 22, 1950.
30. “Naye muhajireen aur Pakistan,” Jang, October 30, 1950.
31. “Tabadala-e-abadi,” Jang, December 5, 1951.
32. Jang, April 9, 1952, p. 1.
33. “Mazeed ilaqa,” Jang, September 18, 1952.
34. “Hijrat!,” Jang, April 10, 1952.
35. See Pandey, “Can a Muslim Be an Indian?”
36. There were repeated complaints in Jang about the removal of these services,
and the hardship they were causing. One letter by Ahmad Ali of Mirpurkhas described
the conditions as “equal to death” for women and children making the journey in
the heat through the desert without camels. Furthermore, they had to wait for days
at Khokrapar for a train to come to take them to towns in Sind. On the one hand,
he argued, the Indian government was making life impossible for Muslims, and on
the other the government of Pakistan was finishing them off in this way. Jang, April
2, 1952, p. 3.
37. Khalidi, “From Torrent to Trickle,” pp. 32–45.
38. CAP, April 9 and 10, 1951, p. 1064.
39. Apparently a statement by him had been published in the Tanvir, a newspaper of
Lucknow, that he was not a Pakistani national and that he had no intention to adopt Pakistani nationality. This led to a debate in the Assembly on its propriety, and Mahmud Husain defended the high commissioner on the grounds that until Pakistani nationality was
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5. passports and boundaries
265
defined by law the question was a moot one. CAP, January 12, 1950, Question 236. Sardar
Shaukat Hayat Khan raised the question of Ismail’s citizenship at this debate as well.
40. It was also argued in this debate that the passport system was not a “normal” requirement for “entry from one country to another,” and particularly in the case of neighboring countries this was even less common. Dutta pointed out, for instance, that passports
were not required for travel between Commonwealth countries, or in the two Irelands, or
between France and England or between the United States and Canada.
41. A parliamentary discussion on introducing permits between East and West Bengal appeared in Jang, April 26, 1952, p. 1. Shortly thereafter announcements for a uniform system for both East and West Pakistan were made in Jang, May 8, 1952, p. 1. Restrictions on movement in the east were a central point of contention, for according to
reports in Jang, the Indian government threatened to renounce the Nehru-Liaqat Pact
if the Pakistan government imposed a permit system on the eastern border. In Jang, May
8 and 9, 1952, p. 1. Nehru was quoted as stating that the Indian government opposed
the passport system since it would badly affect minorities in East Pakistan, although the
Indian government would do its best to help them in every way. In Jang, May 24, 1952,
p. 1. On passport negotiations, see Jang, May 19, 1952, p. 2; “Passport system agreement
is complete, although the problem has been Indian requests for special conditions for
Bengal,” Jang, June 11, 1952, p. 1.
42. “Bharat ke Musalmanon ko jasoos bana kar Pakistan bheja ja raha hai,” Jang, August 1, 1952, p. 1, headlines; on illegal travelers, see Jang, May 7, 1952, p. 1.
43. Jang, July 12, 1952, p. 5.
44. “Influx from Pakistan (Control) Repealing Bill,” CAI, November 27, 1952; “Motion re: Migration Between Pakistan and India,” CAI, November 15, 1952.
45. Jang, July 5, 1952, p. 1; Jang, August 18, 1952, p. 2. Details of the different locations
of visa offices as well as visa types were announced, for the system was to start from 15
October 15, 1952. For Khwaja Nizamuddin’s visit, see “Amad-o-raft,” Jang, October 17,
1952, p. 17.
46. Jang, October 15, 1952, p. 1.
47. Letter to the editor, Jang, June 12, 1952.
48. “Passport,” Jang, May 6, 1952.
49. “Pakistani Passport,” Jang, September 7, 1952, p. 3.
50. “Passport system ki nafiz,” Jang, October 22, 1952, p. 1.
51. Jang, June 15, 1952, p. 1; “Muhajireen par hukumat ki nazar enayat,” Jang,
May 21, 1952; “Gair qanoni dakhla,” Jang, November 12, 1952; “Aane wale,” Jang,
December 5, 1952.
52. Munzurul Haq, “A Review of Indo-Pak Relations 1947–54,” Pakistan Standard,
Independence Day Number, 1954.
53. “Muhajireen,” letter to the editor, Jang, November 16, 1952.
54. Nehru noted in 1953 that 3,000–4,000 Muslims were going to Pakistan via
Khokrapar and that “most of them appear to feel that there is no great future for them
in India.” He considered the evacuee property laws as the most significant reason for
the displacement. Jawaharlal Nehru, Letters to the Chief Ministers 1947–64, vol. 3, ed. G.
Parathasarathi (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 463; Khalidi, “From Torrent to Trickle,” p. 38.
55. “Pakistan jane ki afwah,” Al-Jamiat, July 4, 1951.
56. “Khokrapar ka rasta,” Al-Jamiat, June 23, 1951.
57. “Pakistan jane ki afwah,” Al-Jamiat, July 4, 1951.
58. “Pakistan se muhajireen ki wapasi,” Al-Jamiat, July 7, 1951.
Zamindar NOTES.indd 265
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266
5. passports and boundaries
59. “Pakistan jane wallon se,” Al-Jamiat, September 11, 1951.
60. “Taqseem ko khatm karneka tareqa,” Al-Jamiat, January 16, 1952; “Pakistani kon
hai?,” Al-Jamiat, January 18, 1952.
61. Al-Jamiat, May 23, 1952; “Passport System,” letter to editor, Al-Jamiat, June 14,
1952, p. 3; “Khokrapar ka rasta,” Al-Jamiat, June 23, 1951.
62. “Khokrapar band,” first letter to editor, Al-Jamiat, July 14, 1952.
63. “Khokrapar band,” second letter to editor, Al-Jamiat, July 14, 1952.
64. Al-Jamiat, July 14, 1952, p. 2.
6. the phantasm of passports
1. I draw upon Brinkley Messick’s formulation—“Behind a given document text is
the law, in front of it is the world”—to understand a document as mediating between
state and individuals in society. Brinkley Messick, The Calligraphic State: Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993),
p. 227.
2. See Noiriel, The French Melting Pot; Torpey, The Invention of the Passport; Mongia,
“Race, Nationality, Mobility.”
3. After a period of five years a person could apply for registration, under the Citizenship Rules of 1956, although “the registering authority” had discretion to accept or
reject an application. “Citizenship Rules 1956 and the Citizens (Registration at Indian
Consulates) Rules 1956,” NAI MEA F40–18/55-PSP.
4. “Instructions to checkposts—Intimations regarding entry of Pakistani nationals to
District authorities in India,” NAI MEA F 31(2)/56 PSP.
5. “Illegal Influx of Pakistani Nationals into Indian territory and Measures to Prevent
it,” NAI MEA-PSP F31(7)56-PSP.
6. “Question Regarding Nationality of Persons in Disputed Cases,” NAI MHA
20/96/59-IC.
7. “Regularization of Stay of Persons of Minority Community in Pakistan who Entered India Without Travel Documents,” NAI MHA 1/20/58-FIII.
8. “Permanent Stay in India of Shri Nevandmal s/o late Pradhandas,” NAI MHA
5/16/63-FIII.
9. “Rules for Minority Community in Pakistan . . . ,” NAI MHA 10/1/59-IC.
10. “Jews who have immigrated to Israel—Return of—Policy regarding,” MHA
F6/55/58-FI.
11. “Mr. Asher Reuben Moses an Israeli national,“ NAI MHA 3/53/58-IC.
12. Government of Bihar, Political Department to Ministry of Home Affairs, GOI,
February 7, 1958, NAI MHA 1/36/58-FIII.
13. “Express Letter,” May 17, 1958, Ibid.
14. “Unauthorized stay in Bihar of about 500 Pakistani nationals who did not obtain
‘F’ visas,” NAI MEA 30(10)/55-PSP.
15. Ranajit Das Gupta, “Migrants in Coalmines: Peasants or Proletariats: 1850s–1947,”
Social Scientist 13, no. 12 (Dec. 1985): 18.
16. “Passport not Proof of Citizenship, Article 3 of Act Held Invalid,” Statesman, September 8, 1957.
17. “Shri Ghafoor Khan s/o Late Sri Wazir Khan—determination of his national
status,” NAI MHA 16/175/59-IC.
Zamindar NOTES.indd 266
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7. moving boundaries
267
18. “Grant of an India-Pakistan Passport to Shri N. Basar Khan and his wife,” NAI
MEA File No. 41(61)55-PSP.
19. Albert Venn Dicey, A Digest of the Laws of England with Reference to the Conflict of
Laws (London: Steven & Sons, 1896), p. 77.
20. AIR 1955 Nagpur 6, Karimun Nisa and others v. Govt of Madhya Pradesh and Another.
21. Das, Critical Events, p. 62.
22. SL Yadav, Asst. Sec. to Govt. of UP to MHA, January 11, 1963.
23. See S. M. Akram Rizvi, “Kinship and Industry Among the Muslim Karkhanedars
in Delhi,” in Family, Kinship, and Marriage Among Muslims in India, ed. Imtiaz Ahmad
(New Delhi: Manohar, 1976), pp. 27–48; Veena Das, “The Structure of Marriage Preferences: An Account from Pakistani Fiction,” Man, no. 8 (1973): 30–45; J. P. S. Uberoi,
“Men, Women, and Property in Northern Afghanistan,” in India and Contemporary Islam,
ed. S.T. Lokhandwalla (Simla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1971).
24. Khalidi, “From Torrent to Trickle,” p. 43.
25. Hidayathunissa Begum, NAI MHA 4/43/61-IC.
26. K. D. Gupta, Under-Sec, GOI to Sec., Govt. of Rajasthan, November 20, 1958,
NAI MHA 4/221/58-IC, p. 2.
27. “Question whether ladies coming to India on migration certificates but whose
husbands are still in Pakistan as Pakistani nationals may be registered as Indian citizens,”
NAI MHA 4/221/58-IC.
28. AIR 1955 SC282, State of Bihar, Appellant v. Kumar Amar Singh and Others,
Respondents.
29. AIR 1951 Pat 434.
30. “Shah Mohd. s/o Abdul Ghafoor,” NAI MHA 8/207/58-FIV.
31. “Pak-returned national,” Hindustan Times, March 14, 1969.
32. “Rafiq Husain s/o Reaz Husain—Revision application,” NAI MHA 15/39/
57-IC.
33. “Grant of Indo-Pak passport to Sri Mohd Hashim,” NAI MEA 41(155)PSP-55.
34. “Shah Mohd. s/o Abdul Ghafoor,” NAI MHA 8/207/58-FIV.
35. “Shri Zikar son of late Haji Yusuf—Appeal,” NAI MHA 4/108/57-IC.
36. “Saeeduddin Khan s/o Late Abdul Rashid Khan—Revision application,” NAI
MHA 15/50/59-IC.
37. “Form for the application . . . ,” NAI MHA 20/50/56-FIII.
38. “Interpretation of the term ‘family’ used in Column 14 . . . ,” NAI MHA 10/3/
58-IC.
39. “Correspondence re: Government servants whose families are staying in Pakistan,” DSA 95/48-C vol. 2.
7. moving boundaries
1. Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient (London: Picador, 1993), p. 261.
2. Ondaatje, The English Patient, pp. 181–203.
3. “Repatriation of Hav. Ghulam Ali alleged to be an ex-Indian Army Personnel,”
GOI, NAI MEA F20(30)/58-PSP.
4. See Willem van Schendel, “Stateless in South Asia: The Making of the India-Bangladesh Enclaves,” Journal of Asian Studies 61, no. 1. (February 2002): 115–47; and The
Bengal Borderland: Beyond State and Nation in South Asia (London: Anthem Press, 2005).
Zamindar NOTES.indd 267
8/21/07 6:43:01 PM
268
7. moving boundaries
5. See for instance Pamela Ballinger, History in Exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders
of the Balkans (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), on the Julian March and the
Yugoslavia-Italy border.
6. Gilmartin, “Partition, Pakistan, and South Asian History,” p. 1092.
7. I am indebted to Willem van Schendel for sending me this newspaper story. http://
www.telegraphindia.com/1030819/asp/nation/story_2277155.asp#top
8. Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History From the Nation (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1995), p. 27.
Zamindar NOTES.indd 268
8/21/07 6:43:01 PM
Selected Glossary
Appa/Apa
sister
Ansar
friend, helper
Bhai
brother, form of respect
Chacha
father’s brother
Crore
100 lakh, 10 million
grandfather
Dada
Eid/idd festival following the completion of hajj, and the end of
Ramadan
prayer for the dead
Fateha
Hijra
migration
Hakim
a wise man, physician
Jama Masjid
the Great Mosque
Khala
mother’s sister
Khandan/i
family/familial
Khutba
lecture after Friday prayers
Lakh
100,000
house
Makan
Mohalla
neighborhood
Mu’amlati soch
transactional, businesslike thinking
Muhajir
refugee/migrant
Mutawalli
caretaker
Naaptol
measuring and weighing
Na-mahram
one from whom purdah is maintained
Zamindar NOTES.indd 269
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270
selected glossary
Pagri lump-sum payment made for transfer of tenancy
Panaghir
seeker of panah or refuge, refugee
Purana Qila
old fort
Purdah/Purdah-nashin
veil, veiled woman
Qurbani
sacrifice
Qabza karna
to occupy, seize
Saheb
sir, form of respect
Sharanati
refugee (used for non-Muslim refugee)
Waqf-e-aulad
Muslim family endowment
Zamindar NOTES.indd 270
8/21/07 6:43:01 PM
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Index
Absentee Property Act (Israel; 1949), 130
Ahmad, Izhar, 110–111
Ali, Choudhary Rehmat, 243n6
Ali, Ghulam, 1–2, 3, 11, 12, 103, 111, 230–234,
238
Al-Jamiat (newspaper), 15; on evacuee
property laws, 140–141, 143; on hostage
theory, 73, 74; on Indian Muslims, 70,
185–189; on Muslim refugees, 165; on
permit system, 83, 103, 104, 111; property
ads in, 137–139
All India Congress Committee (AICC),
50, 55
Amrohi, Rais, 103, 107, 167–169
Anjam (newspaper), 16
Ansari, Sara, 49, 50, 68
Assam, 166, 175
Azad, Maulana Abul Kalam, 22, 34, 37–38,
39, 91, 247n6, 257n20
Aziz saheb, 23–26, 27, 31, 39
Azmatullah, Maulvi Mohammad, 118–119
Azmi, Kaifi, 14
Babri mosque (Ayodhya, UP), 237
Balibar, Etienne, 246n35
Baluchistan, 42
Bangladesh, 235; see also East Pakistan
Bengal, 5, 235, 244n6; balanced populations
Zamindar Index.indd 279
in, 74; East, 100, 168, 174, 181–183, 189;
evacuee property in, 127, 261n19; and
Muslim refugees, 166, 167; nationalism in, 179; Pakistan’s claim to, 175; and
permit system, 100, 179
Bengali language, 179
Bharatiya Jana Sangh, 188
Bhargava, P.L., 109
Bihar coal miners, 200–201
Bihari, Maulana Abdul Quddus, 151–152
Bombay, 130
borders, 1–4, 246nn35,37; closing of, 166,
169–170, 188–189; and evacuee property
laws, 128, 134; and nation-states, 11,
12–13, 234, 236; and Nehru-Liaqat Pact,
166, 167; opposition to closing, 185,
186–187; and passport system, 161, 164,
179; of state and society, 112; ties across,
12–13, 14, 16, 234–237
Boundary Force, 39–40
Britain, 130, 154, 231
British colonial government, 6, 15, 33, 49,
162, 261n28
Bux, Pir Ilahi, 55
Calcutta, 100
Central Muslim Relief Committee, 32
Chakrabarty, Dipesh, 14
8/21/07 6:40:06 PM
280
index
Chakraverty, Raj Kumar, 128
Chandra, Satish, 216–217
Chattopadhyaya, Sris Chandra, 180
cholera, 35, 36
Chugtai, Ismet, 14
citizenship, 4–5, 7, 9, 229; and closing of
borders, 189; domicile requirement for,
106–107, 109, 177, 209–210, 213–214;
equal, 52, 166, 167; and evacuee property
laws, 121, 140, 213, 214, 217, 218, 262n49;
and family, 211–212, 214, 220–226, 235;
of Ghulam Ali, 232–234; of Hindus, 53,
221; humanitarian view of, 201–202, 217,
220–221, 232, 233, 234, 239; Indian, 5, 41,
175, 178, 179, 189, 196, 202, 205, 215–216,
219, 259n60, 267n3; of Jews, 199, 221;
laws on, 103, 106–107, 176, 177, 203, 204,
205, 215, 259n60, 267n3; limit dates on,
176, 177, 178, 180; and loyalty, 11, 217,
218–220, 221; and marriage, 209–212;
and migration, 84–85, 107–110, 196, 210;
of Muslims, 41, 43, 48, 49, 107, 132, 168,
175, 177, 178, 179, 189, 204, 217, 222–226;
of non-Muslim refugees, 31, 198–199,
221; Pakistani, 48, 49, 51–52, 107, 168,
169, 176–180, 196, 203, 204; and passport
system, 107, 162, 176–180, 190, 195–198,
200–205, 220–221, 233; and permit
system, 12, 81, 102–112, 145, 194–195,
218; in postcolonial states, 51–52, 53; and
religious identity, 52, 119; and returning refugees, 79, 107; and undefined
status, 205–208, 226, 233–234, 238–239;
and visas, 200, 201, 202, 203, 215, 217; of
women, 107, 209–214; of youth, 214–217
Citizenship Act (India; 1955), 259n60
Citizenship Act (Pakistan; 1951), 176, 177,
203, 204
Citizenship Rules (India; 1956), 205, 215, 267n3
Congress Party (Indian National Congress),
4, 20, 50, 73, 147, 186; Muslim supporters
of, 10, 33, 81, 219; in Sind, 51
Constituent Assembly of India, 8, 31
Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, 5,
176–179, 185
constitution, Indian, 166, 167, 259n60
constitution, Pakistani, 166, 167, 264n10
corruption; and housing crisis, 60–62; in
Pakistani Rent Controller’s Office, 150,
152–157; and permit system, 183, 194
Custodian of Absentee Property (Israel),
10, 130
Zamindar Index.indd 280
Custodian of Enemy Property (Britain), 130
Custodian of Evacuee Property (India), 10,
38, 119, 120–124, 129, 133, 141, 171; and
citizenship, 213; creation of, 123–124; discrimination by, 143–145; and informers,
146; and occupation of houses, 28; and
pagri system, 142–143; records of, 136–137,
261n36; seizures of Muslim property by,
140–142; see also evacuee property
Custodian of Evacuee Property (Pakistan),
59, 141, 150, 154; see also Rent Controller’s Office
Daniel, E.Valentine, 3, 36
Das,Veena, 210
Datta, Kamini Kumar, 153
Datta,V.N., 22
Dayal, Raghubar, 109
Defense, Indian Ministry of, 232–233
Delhi, 3, 12; archives of, 15; evacuee property
in, 123, 127, 146; map of, 30; Muslim
exodus from, 7–8, 19–43, 45, 60; Muslim
refugee camps in, 30, 34, 37, 45, 250n46;
Muslims in, 4, 5, 19–43, 143; Muslim
zones in, 30, 136; occupation of houses
in, 24, 26, 27–33; and passport system,
197–198; police in, 23, 25, 26, 86–88;
violence in, 5, 6, 11, 21–27, 79, 247n5
Delhi Accords. See Nehru-Liaqat Pact
deportation, 197, 202, 239; Ebrahim Vazir
Mavat and Others v. the State of Bombay,
111; of Ghulam Ali, 230, 231; and permit
system, 110–111, 145; of women, 212, 214
Dhaka, language riots in, 179, 181
Dicey, A.V., 209
discrimination, 5 and evacuee property,
140, 143–145; against Hindus, 51, 63–64,
153, 180, 181; against Muslim refugees,
171–172, 173; against Muslims, 131–132,
136, 149, 173, 185, 186, 187–188, 198–200,
217, 221, 223, 226, 246n41; by Pakistani
government, 55–56
displaced persons, 9, 149, 171, 249n22,
260n2; vs. evacuees, 120–121, 123, 136; as
informers, 146; in Pakistan, 123, 156–157;
property rights of, 124, 125; types of, 57;
see also refugees
displacement, 3, 4, 6, 245n24; ambivalence
of, 57; economy of, 123–134, 214; and
evacuee property laws, 12, 121, 129, 130–
131, 134; internal, 121, 129, 130–131, 134;
vs. migration, 7; of Muslims, 13, 19–43,
8/21/07 6:40:07 PM
index
149; and national identity, 190–191; of
non-Muslims, 49–53; and patrilocal family, 211–212; and permit system, 108, 195;
in Punjab, 6, 166, 251n67; responses to,
6–12; reversal of, 73; and social change,
157; and violence, 99; of youth, 214–217
Dolwani, Tek Chand, 146
Duara, Prasenjit, 239
Dutta, Dhirendra Nath, 128, 179
East Pakistan, Hindus in, 167, 180–181; and
passport system, 180, 181, 235; and permit system, 99, 100, 104, 179
economic rationality (mu’amalati soch),
173–174
economy, Indian, and divided families,
133–134; and Muslims, 39, 94, 149, 187;
and refugee rehabilitation, 8–10
economy, Pakistani, and Hindus, 50, 51, 52,
68; and Muslims, 94, 102, 170, 173–174,
176, 177, 178, 185, 187; and permit system, 100–101; and population transfers,
40–41; and quotas, 70; and refugee
rehabilitation, 8–10
Emergency Committees, 6, 21, 22, 41; and
Muslim camps, 35, 36–37; and occupation of houses, 27, 28
Emergency Regulations on Property of
Absentees (Israel; 1948), 130
espionage, 199, 230; and Indian Muslims,
92–93, 181; and passport system, 179, 181,
195; and permit system, 99–100; see also
fifth columnists
ethnic cleansing, 12
Europe, passport systems in, 81; refugees in,
6, 34–35
Evacuation, Director General of, 53, 57
Evacuee Interest (Separation) Act (India),
128–129, 147–149
evacuee property, 9–10, 120–157; in Bengal,
261n19; and citizenship, 140, 217, 218;
compensation for, 40, 124–126, 130,
131–132, 134, 136, 140; in Delhi, 123, 127,
146; and discrimination, 140, 143–145;
economic value of, 124, 125, 128, 132,
134, 136; in India, 134–149; and informers, 146; joint, 147–149; in Karachi,
149–157; and national identity, 229; in
Pakistan, 166, 171; private exchange of,
137–140; records on, 136–137; restoration
of, 134–136, 167, 169, 181; restrictions on
sale of, 119, 124, 125, 126–127, 131, 137;
Zamindar Index.indd 281
281
separation of interests in, 128–129; and
violence, 123, 136, 149
evacuee property laws, 11, 12, 120–157;
abrogation of, 122, 134; abuses of, 126,
140–142, 150–157; agreed areas for,
125, 260n13; and borders, 128, 134; and
citizenship, 121, 140, 213, 214, 217, 218,
262n49; and displacement, 12, 121, 129,
130–131, 134; and divided families, 13,
122, 133–134; extension of, 127; and
Hindus, 124, 126, 128, 129, 139, 149–157,
262n60; and hostage theory, 121, 128,
141; Indian, 120–149; in Karachi, 149–
157, 262n60; and Karachi Agreement,
140; legal claims under, 12, 122, 129, 140–
141, 144–149, 147, 157, 261nn28,30,36;
legal guides on, 129, 145; and loyalty, 128,
133, 134, 136, 140, 147; and Muslims, 124,
125, 140–142, 157, 191, 262n50, 266n54;
in Muslim zones, 132–133, 136; Nehru
on, 146, 262n50, 266n54; and occupation
of houses, 28; and pagri system, 142–143;
Pakistani, 122, 128, 149–157; and permit
system, 125, 126–127, 141–142; and
refugee rehabilitation, 120, 124–127, 129,
132, 133, 134, 150, 261n22; and returning
refugees, 169, 191; seizures of property
under, 140–142; and Sikh refugees, 124,
126, 129; see also Custodian of Evacuee
Property
Evacuee Property (Preservation) Ordinances, East and West Punjab (1947), 123
Evacuee Property Trust (Pakistan), 263n80
evacuees, and citizenship, 262n49; definition
of, 120–121, 125, 127, 130, 260n15; designation as, 145–146; vs. displaced persons,
9, 120–121, 123, 136; figures on, 69–70;
Hindus as, 120–121, 127, 150; intending,
127, 131, 132, 134, 146, 169, 191; joint
property of, 147–149; limiting date on,
125–126; Muslims as, 9, 120, 123, 127,
173, 191; non-Muslims as, 120–121, 173;
property rights of, 125, 130–131
External Affairs, Ministry of (India), 134,
148, 208, 232; and passport system, 195,
196–197, 201, 203, 204, 218
families, divided, 3, 234–237, 246n42; and
borders, 12–13, 14, 16; and citizenship, 211–212, 214, 220–226, 235; and
evacuee property laws, 13, 122, 133–134;
and evacuee status, 146; of government
8/21/07 6:40:09 PM
282
index
employees, 112–119, 223–226; interviews
with, 13–14; joint property of, 147–149;
and loyalty, 112–119, 222–226, 237; and
passport system, 184, 187; and permit
system, 81, 83–85, 103–104; and waqfe-aulad (family endowments), 149, 213,
262n58
family, definitions of, 222–223; patrilocal,
113, 210–211
fifth columnists, 91–92, 133, 257n23; see also
espionage
Foreign Affairs, Ministry of (Pakistan),
101–102
Foreigner Laws (Amendment) Ordinance
(India; 1957), 203
Foreigners Act (India; 1946), 203, 206, 207
Gandhi, Mahatma, 21, 49, 56, 129, 256n12;
and Muslims, 37–38, 39, 86, 94
Garam Hawa (film), 12–13, 14
Gazder, Hashim, 50, 153–154
Ghafoor, Abdul, 33
Ghalib, Mirza, 156
Gidwani, Choithram P., 49, 50, 55
Gilmartin, David, 4, 238
Godse, Nathu Ram, 86
government employees, 125, 177, 184;
families of, 112–119, 223–226; houses for,
57–59; Muslims as Indian, 57–59, 90–91,
112–119, 259n70; Pakistani, 103
Goyal, Hukamchand, 145, 262n49
Das Gupta, Jyoti Bhusan, 123
Gurmani, H., 178
Hamdard Dawakhana, 247n42
Hamid, Hakim Abdul, 247n42
harijans, 50
Harvani, Ansar, 221
Hasan, Mushirul, 14, 68, 69, 70
Hidayatullah, Ghulam Husain, 48, 59
Hindu Cooperative Housing Societies, 55
Hindu refugee camps, 2, 35, 230–231, 232,
233
Hindu refugees, from East Pakistan, 167,
181–183; and evacuee property laws, 124,
126, 128, 129, 139, 149–157, 262n60; as
evacuees, 120–121, 127, 150; and hostage
theory, 73; Indian encouragement of,
174; from Karachi, 8, 45–76, 263n80; vs.
Muslim refugees, 7, 19, 22, 69–70; and
occupation of houses, 28–29, 31; and
permit system, 104, 106; and property
Zamindar Index.indd 282
exchanges, 139; return of, 73, 74; and
violence, 21
Hindus, citizenship of, 53, 221; discrimination against, 51, 60, 63–64, 153, 180, 181;
in East Bengal, 168, 189; in East Pakistan,
167, 180–181, 181; and evacuee property
laws, 149–157; free passage for, 253n26; as
government employees, 112; and housing,
58–67; and Indian government, 55–56, 57;
vs. Indian Muslims, 70–76; as intending
evacuees, 127; in Karachi, 5–6, 49, 58–67,
149–157, 262n60; as landowners, 69; loyalty
of, 63–64, 180, 198; vs. Muslims, 21, 173–
174; national identity of, 229; non-Sindhi,
50; in Pakistan, 4, 5, 70–76, 149–157, 169,
179, 180, 198; and Pakistani economy, 50,
51, 52, 68; and Pakistani government, 54,
62–63, 67; and passport system, 180–181,
198; in Punjab, 251n66; rightist, 86, 188,
237, 246n41; and rumors, 54, 64, 65; Sindhi,
6, 43, 45–76, 51, 253nn23,25
Home Affairs, Ministry of (India), 207, 232,
233; and government employees, 117–
119; and passport system, 195, 197–198,
200, 201, 220, 221; and women’s citizenship, 212–213
hostage theory, 4, 22, 71–76, 179, 189; and
evacuee property laws, 121, 128, 141
houses, in Delhi, 20, 24, 26, 27–33; “empty,”
31–33, 60, 66, 67, 89, 90, 129, 131, 136;
and family history, 122; for government
employees, 57–59, 118; of Hindus, 49,
149–157; in Karachi, 20, 43, 49, 54–55,
57–67, 85–86, 149–157, 153, 262n60; lack
of, 57, 59, 60–67, 85–86, 153, 257n17; and
Muslim influx, 87–89, 90, 91, 92–93; occupation of, 24, 26, 27–33, 54–55, 65–67,
87–88, 89, 118, 123, 124, 143; in Pakistan,
32, 154–157, 187; rental of, 64, 143; sharing of, 153–154; and violence, 27, 31, 32,
67, 87–88, 89; see also evacuee property
Humayun’s Tomb (Muslim refugee camp;
Delhi), 30, 250n46
Husain, Altaf, 238
Husain, Mahmud, 265n39
Husain, Mazhar, 111
Husain, Rafiq, 216–217, 218
Husain, Shabbir, 108–109
Husain, Zakir, 27, 35, 85, 118, 247n42
Hyderabad, 50, 56, 102
Idgah (Muslim refugee camp; Delhi), 30, 34
8/21/07 6:40:11 PM
index
Iftikharuddin, Mian Muhammad, 179
Indian Civil Service (ICS), 90–91
Indian government, and citizenship, 215–216;
and compensation issue, 124–126; and
evacuee property laws, 128–129; and Hindus, 55–56, 57; and Muslim camps, 34, 35,
36; Muslim employees of, 57–59, 90–91,
112–119, 259n70; and Muslims, 27–28, 41,
53, 74–76, 185–189, 191; and non-Muslim
refugees, 49–50, 52–53; and occupation of
houses, 27–28, 29, 33; and passport system,
180–185; and population transfers, 39–43;
protection of Muslims by, 27–28, 74–76;
and returning refugees, 79, 98; and secular
India, 10; and violence, 6, 7, 21
Indian High Commission, 86, 141, 230, 235,
236, 253n26; and citizenship, 209, 210; on
non-Muslim refugees, 52–53; and permit
system, 104, 109
Indian National Congress. See Congress
Party
Influx from Pakistan (Control) Ordinance,
82, 87, 106, 108, 109
Interior, Ministry of (Pakistan), 101–102
Islamabad, 15, 16
Ismail, Mohammad, 177, 255n80, 265n39
Israel, 10, 130–131, 134, 199, 221
Jain, A.P., 127, 129, 130, 131–133
Jalil, Syed Mohammad, 76
Jama Masjid (Delhi), 92, 247n42; Muslim
refugee camp at, 30, 34, 37
Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind (JUH), 72, 136,
140–141, 143, 144, 244n18
Jamiat-ul-Mahajireen, 154
Jang (newspaper), 15, 72, 148, 154, 175;
cartoons in, 60–67, 87, 93, 95, 97; on
evacuee property, 141–142, 157; on housing crisis, 57, 60–67; on Indian Muslims,
70, 76; on Muslim influx, 86, 92, 93, 165,
171–172, 173; on passport system, 181,
183, 184, 185; on permit system, 103, 105;
on returning Muslim refugees, 95–97
January 6, 1948 incident (Karachi), 48, 52,
53, 67, 72, 86, 96
Jews, 199, 221; see also Israel
Jinnah, Mohammad Ali, 8, 41, 54, 69, 175,
244n6, 254n47; on equal citizenship, 52,
167
Joint Defense Council, 123
Kadiruddin, Begum, 91
Zamindar Index.indd 283
283
Karachi, 3, 5–6, 7, 8, 12; crime in, 54–55;
evacuee property in, 122, 123, 149–157,
262n60; government of, 170; Hindu
exodus from, 8, 45–76, 263n80; Hindus
in, 5–6, 49, 58–67, 149–157, 262n60; historiography in, 16; housing in, 20, 43, 49,
54–55, 57–67, 85–86, 149–157, 262n60;
January 6, 1948 incident in, 48, 52, 53,
67, 72, 86, 96; map of, 46–47, 263n63;
Muslim refugees in, 8, 43, 46–47, 48,
59, 101, 170–176; as Pakistani capital,
57, 254n47; and permit system, 106; and
returning Muslim refugees, 85, 96; Sikh
refugees from, 48, 49; state of emergency
in, 53–57; violence in, 11, 52, 53, 54, 59,
254n72
Karachi Agreement (1949), 125–126, 137,
140, 164
Karachi Port Trust, 56
Kargil conflict (1999), 246n41
Karimuddin, Kazi Syed, 129
Kashmir, 3, 92, 123, 264n11
Khalidi, Omar, 185, 211, 252n4
Khaliquzzaman, Chaudry, 170, 171, 173,
217
Khan, Basar, 208
Khan, Ghafoor, 205–207, 208
Khan, Ghazanfar Ali, 96, 98
Khan, Hakim Dilbar Hasan, 146–147
Khan, Inamullah (Qamar Jamali), 111
Khan, Liaqat Ali, 146–147
Khan, Mohammad Ajmal, 221
Khan, Najib, 110
Khan, Saeeduddin, 220–221
Khan, Sardar Amir Azam, 178
Khan, Sardar Shaukat Hayat, 177–178,
265n39
Khan, Sayid Ahmad, 5, 244n17
Khokrapar border crossing, 205, 265n36,
266n54; closing of, 169–170, 186–189,
235; continued use of, 185; and Muslim
refugees, 164–166, 170, 171, 191; one-way
traffic through, 171, 206; and passport
system, 161–162, 175, 176
Khosla, G.D., 38, 129
Khuhro, M. Ayub, 52, 67, 69–70, 96, 153
Khurshid, Sahibzada, 22, 27, 38, 90–91
Kidwai, Anis, 35
Kidwai, Rafi Ahmad, 34
Knudsen, John, 36
Kripalani, Acharya, 50, 55, 56
Kudaisya, Gyanesh, 27
8/21/07 6:40:12 PM
284
index
Lahore conference (October 5, 1947), 42
Lahore inter-dominion conference (July 22,
1948), 99
Lahore Resolution (1940), 179
land, 69, 74, 174–176, 177
law, Muslim, 149
Law Ministry (India), 222–223
legal cases, Badruzzaman, 107–108, 109;
Ebrahim Vazir Mavat and Others v. the
State of Bombay, 111; and evacuee property laws, 12, 30, 36, 122, 129, 140–141,
144–149, 157, 261nn28; and national
identity, 12; Palace Hotel, 151–152; and
permit system, 107–112, 145
legal guides, 111, 129, 145, 162
legitimacy, 6, 10, 11, 12; of evacuee property
laws, 123, 128, 132, 133; and Hindu
evacuees, 150; and Muslim influx, 166,
169; and occupation of houses, 27, 28; of
Pakistani government, 42, 161
Liaqat Ali Khan, 55, 73, 74, 101, 181, 251n66,
264n11; and Muslim refugees, 98, 99,
167–169, 172; and population transfers,
41–43
Low, D.A., 245n24
loyalty, and Al-Jamiat, 186; and citizenship,
11, 217, 218–220, 221; and evacuee property laws, 128, 133, 134, 136, 140, 147; and
family, 112–119, 222–226, 237; of government employees, 112–119; of Hindus,
63–64, 180, 198; of Muslims, 14, 91–94,
178, 191, 256n12; and passport system,
218–220; and permit system, 133
makan. see houses
Malkki, Liisa, 34–35
Manto, Saadat Hasan, 2
marriage. and citizenship, 209–212; cousin,
211, 212; cross-border, 163–164, 211; see
also families, divided
Mavat, Ebrahim Vazir, 111
memory, 3, 6, 14, 16, 22
Messick, Brinkley, 267n1
migration, and citizenship, 84–85, 107–110,
196, 210; vs. displacement, 7; vs. domicile,
213–214; and famine, 110; limiting date
on, 125–126; and passport system, 196,
198; and permit system, 12, 195; and
undefined status, 207, 208; of youth,
215
Military Evacuation Organization (MEO),
40, 41, 42, 49, 68, 123
Zamindar Index.indd 284
minorities, protection of, 75, 166–170,
251n66, 256n5
Mirza, case of, 117–118
Mitchell, Timothy, 112
Mohammad, Ghulam, 80
Mohammad, Shah, 214–216, 218
Mongia, Radhika, 81
mu’amalati soch (economic rationality),
173–174
Mudie, Francis, 48, 50, 51, 57, 58, 59
Muhajir Committee, 60, 67
Muhajir Qaumi Movement (MQM), 14,
163, 164, 238, 246n41, 251n2
muhajirs. See Muslim refugees
Muhammad, Prophet, 10, 45, 60
Mukherji, Shyam Prasad, 175
Muslim League, 45, 59, 72, 81, 119, 175;
All India, 3–4, 75, 178; Bengali, 5; and
creation of Pakistan, 3–4; and evacuee
status, 146–147; and occupation of houses, 27, 33; and restrictions on Muslim
refugees, 170, 173; Sindhi, 51, 57, 254n47
Muslim refugee camps, 26, 34–39, 41,
248n19, 251n67; census of, 36–37; confinement to, 250n46; in Delhi, 30, 34, 37,
45, 250n46; and Emergency Committees, 35, 36–37; in Karachi, 59; Muslim
management of, 34, 35, 36, 249n39; and
occupation of houses, 27, 28, 29, 31,
33; police deserters in, 248n14, 250n59;
refugees from, 45,
58
Muslim Refugee Resettlements (Karachi),
46–47
Muslim refugees, vs. non-Muslim refugees,
87–89, 173
Muslim refugees (muhajirs), in Bengal,
166, 167; counting of, 86–88, 170, 173;
from Delhi, 7–8, 19–43, 45, 60, 250n59;
discrimination against, 171–172, 173,
246n41; entitlement to Pakistan of, 10, 45,
70–76, 98, 161, 176, 187, 191; and evacuee
property laws, 120–121, 124, 125, 140–142,
142, 157, 181, 191, 262n50, 266n54; as
government employees, 57–59, 170; and
Hindu exodus, 54, 57; houses for, 57–67,
87–89, 90, 91, 92–93; and Indian Muslims,
14, 76; in Karachi, 8, 43, 46–47, 48, 59,
101, 170–176; national identity of, 169,
176; vs. non-Muslim refugees, 7, 9, 19,
21, 22, 38–39, 69–70; and occupation of
houses, 28, 55; and Pakistani citizenship,
8/21/07 6:40:14 PM
index
48, 49, 51–52, 107, 168, 169, 176–180,
196, 203, 204; and Pakistani government,
10, 26–27, 40–43, 45, 48, 53, 71, 95–96,
98, 121, 173–174, 178, 185, 186, 189, 238,
250n59; Pakistani restrictions on, 7–8, 12,
95–98, 164–176, 181; and passport system,
12, 184, 196; and permit system, 11, 35,
91, 94, 95–98, 101–102, 102, 104, 105, 106,
166, 171; and police, 86–88, 89, 92; from
Punjab, 38–39, 42–43, 58, 251n67; quotas
for, 68–70; registration of returning, 172,
191, 261n34, 264n12; rehabilitation of,
19, 20, 39, 82, 87, 89, 90, 91, 96, 170–176;
return to India of, 79, 82, 85–98, 102, 105,
106, 107, 169, 171, 172, 187, 191, 196, 197,
220, 222, 261n34; rich vs. poor, 57, 59, 64,
65, 101–102, 150; sacrifice of (muhajir qurbani), 70–71, 172–173, 175, 178, 238; and
Sind, 48, 67, 69–70, 85, 86, 96; surplus of,
68–70; and transfer of populations, 39–43;
from UP, 42, 58, 161, 164, 166, 169, 172;
and violence, 23–26, 33, 48, 63, 166, 172
Muslims, choices of, 234; citizenship of,
107, 175, 177, 179, 189, 204, 222–226; as
Congress supporters, 10, 33, 81, 219; as
constructed category, 3; in Delhi, 4, 5,
19–43, 30, 38–39, 136, 143; discrimination against, 131–132, 136, 149, 173, 185,
186, 187–188, 198–200, 217, 221, 223,
226, 246n41; and evacuee property laws,
132–133, 136, 140–142; as evacuees, 9,
120, 123, 127, 173, 191; family ties of, 13,
239; and Gandhi, 37–38, 39, 86, 94; as
government employees, 57–59, 90–91,
112–119, 259n70; government protection
of, 27–28; as guards at Muslim camps, 34;
vs. Hindus, 21, 70–76, 173–174; Indian, 3,
4, 14, 70, 112, 131, 168, 178, 179, 185–189;
and Indian economy, 39, 94, 149, 187;
and Indian government, 27–28, 41, 53,
74–76, 185–189, 191; loyalty of, 14, 91–94,
178, 191, 256n12; myth of voluntary
exodus of, 186; national identity of, 169,
176, 190–191, 229, 237–238; and Nehru,
35, 94, 98, 185; vs. non-Muslims, 21–27;
and Pakistan, 3–4, 10, 36–39, 70–76, 71,
92–93, 98, 123, 161, 176, 180, 186–187,
188, 190, 191, 196–197, 200, 246n41; and
Pakistani economy, 94, 102, 170, 173–174,
176, 177, 178, 185, 187; and passport
system, 12, 176, 177, 180, 184, 188, 196,
198–200; in Punjab, 26–27, 251n66;
Zamindar Index.indd 285
285
Sindhi, 68, 69, 70; suspicion of, 13, 14,
92–93, 181, 223; and transfer of populations, 26–27; violence against, 14, 237,
247n5, 257n20; women, 212–214
Muslim zones, 30, 76, 136; and evacuee
property laws, 132–133, 136; as miniPakistans, 90–92, 133; and Muslim influx,
89–91; and occupation of houses, 29, 31,
32, 33; and pagri system, 142–143
Nadvi, Ahmad, 185
Naganathan (Indian deputy high commissioner), 96
national identity, 2, 229–234; and citizenship, 112; and displacement, 190–191; of
Ghulam Ali, 230–234; Muslim, 10, 45,
70–76, 98, 161, 169, 176, 187, 190–191,
229, 237–238; and passport system, 12,
162, 180, 181, 189, 191, 196–198; and
permit system, 145, 229; points of view
on, 201–202; and religious identity, 7–8,
11, 257n12, 264n10; and territory, 4, 5;
and violence, 198
nationalism, 5, 179, 219, 255n79
nation-states, and borders, 11, 12–13, 234,
236; and family histories, 14; and identity,
229–230; and individuals, 195, 267n1; and
map-making, 243n6; and memory, 16;
Pakistani concept of, 178; and Partition,
4; postcolonial, 49, 51–52, 53; territorial,
68, 69; and violence, 21–22
Nehru, Jawaharlal, 9, 20, 31, 56, 251n66,
254n72, 264n11; on evacuee property
laws, 146, 262n50, 266n54; and Muslims,
35, 94, 98, 185; on passport system, 221,
266n41; and permit system, 102
Nehru-Liaqat Pact (1950), 135, 166–170,
261n34; on freedom of movement, 166,
167, 181, 256n5, 266n41; and restrictions
on Muslim refugees, 171, 172; on returning Muslim refugees, 187, 191, 264n12
Neogy, K.C., 28, 31, 36, 41, 137
New Life (newspaper), 76
Nizamuddin, Khwaja, 181
non-Muslim refugees, citizenship of, 31,
198–199, 221; displacement of, 49–53;
evacuee property of, 125; as evacuees,
120–121, 173; housing for, 39; in India,
49–50, 50, 52–53, 174; vs. Muslim refugees, 7, 9, 19, 21, 22, 38–39, 69–70, 87–89,
173; and Nehru-Liaqat Pact, 167; and occupation of houses, 28, 31, 32; in Pakistan,
8/21/07 6:40:16 PM
286
index
non-Muslim refugees (continued)
43, 52, 74–76; before Partition, 50–51;
and permit system, 104; and property
exchanges, 139; protection of, 131–132;
rehabilitation of, 7, 53; and Separation
Act, 148–149; from Sind, 42, 49–50; see
also Hindu refugees; Sikh refugees
No Objection Certificates (NOC), 105–106,
109, 184, 191, 193–195, 198, 215
North West Frontier Province (NWFP), 99
Objectives Resolution (Pakistan), 167
Ondaatje, Michael, 231
pagri system, 64, 66, 67, 142–143, 187
Pakistan, as acronym, 3, 243n6; as Muslim
nation, 10, 45, 70–76, 98, 161, 176, 187,
191; Muslims’ decision to go to, 36–39;
Muslim support for, 3–4; opposition to,
188, 252n3; refugee rehabilitation in, 68,
96, 150, 153, 154–157, 261n22; territorial
limits of, 68, 69, 74; see also East Pakistan
Pakistan (Administration of Evacuee Property) Act, 128
Pakistan (Control of Entry) Ordinance
(1948), 82, 100, 106, 178, 258n39
Pakistani government, anger against, 60,
62–63; and compensation issue, 124–126;
discrimination by, 55–56; employees of,
103, 112; and evacuee property laws, 128;
and Hindus, 54, 62–63, 67; and house
occupations, 55, 66–67; and housing crisis,
59; housing for, 55, 57–58; and Indian
evacuee property laws, 133–134; and Indian Muslims, 92–93, 190; Indian nationals in, 255n80; legitimacy of, 42, 161; and
Muslim refugees, 10, 26–27, 40–43, 45, 48,
53, 71, 95–96, 98, 121, 173–174, 178, 185,
186, 189, 238, 250n59; and non-Muslims,
43, 74–76; passport system of, 176–185,
190; permit system of, 82, 99–100,
101–102; population planning by, 68–70;
and population transfers, 39–43; vs. Sind
government, 68; and violence, 6, 7, 21
Pakistani High Commission, 34, 202, 203,
204, 205, 236
Pakistan (Protection of Evacuee Property)
Ordinance (1948), 149
Pakistan Rehabilitation (Amendment) Bill
(1951), 261n22
Palace Hotel case (Karachi), 151–152
Palestinian Arabs, 130
Zamindar Index.indd 286
panaghirs (Muslim refugees), 8
Pandey, Gyanendra, 11, 35
Pant, G.B., 221
Parsis, 49
Partition (1947), 1, 4; effects of, 237–239; and
government employees’ options, 112; historiography of, 14–16; opposition to, 188,
252n3; and permit system, 82–83, 108;
and Punjab, 244n6
Partition Council, 1, 82, 256n5
Passport Agreement (1952), 181
Passport Conference (Karachi; 1952), 181
Passports Act (1967; India), 162
passport system, 11, 12, 161–189; and Andra
Pradesh ruling, 204–205; and borders,
161, 164, 179; and choice, 208; and citizenship, 107, 162, 176–180, 190, 195–198,
200–205, 220–221, 233; datelines in,
203–204; and demands for land, 175;
and eastern frontier, 235; emergency
certificates in, 208, 232, 233; and family,
222–226; and Ghulam Ali, 230; and Hindus, 180–181, 198; humanitarian view
of, 201–202, 203, 210, 211, 217, 220–221;
Indian, 177, 180–185; and individual,
184, 195, 209; and literacy, 200, 206, 208;
and loyalty, 218–220; and Muslims, 12,
176, 177, 180, 184, 188, 196, 198–200;
and national identity, 12, 162, 180, 181,
189, 191, 196–198, 229; and NLP, 167;
normality of, 265n40; Pakistani, 176–185,
190; vs. permit system, 81, 161, 162, 164,
180–185, 190–191, 196; as phantasm,
190–226; and police, 184, 192, 195, 196;
and politics, 217–218, 219; and undefined
status, 205–208, 238–239; and women,
107, 209–214; and youth, 214–217
Patel, Sardar, 4, 39, 53, 94, 264n11
Pathan, Ghyasuddin, 178
permit system, 79–119, 193–195; circumventions of, 105, 106, 194; and citizenship, 12,
81, 102–112, 145, 194–195, 218; and closing of borders, 170; corruption in, 183,
194; and criminalization, 106; and deportations, 110–111, 145; in East Pakistan,
99, 100, 104, 179; and evacuee property
laws, 125, 126–127, 141–142; and family,
13, 81, 83–85, 103–104, 112, 118, 194, 209;
and Gandhi, 94; Indian, 98–99, 102; and
legal cases, 107–112, 145; legal guides on,
111; and loyalty, 133; and Muslim refugees,
11, 35, 91, 94, 95–98, 101–102, 104, 105,
8/21/07 6:40:17 PM
index
106, 166, 171; and national identity, 145,
229; opposition to, 99, 101–102; Pakistani,
95–102, 104, 106; and passport system,
81, 161, 162, 164, 180–185, 190–191, 196;
and permanent return, 104, 105, 107; and
police, 106, 194, 195; and politics, 217; and
temporary visits, 104, 106–112; types of
permits in, 104
Phir Basao Conference, 73, 99
police, in Delhi, 23, 25, 26, 86–88; deserters
from, 248n14, 250n59; and family ties,
223; and Ghulam Ali, 233, 234; and Hindu
exodus, 54; and house occupations, 28,
32–33, 55, 66; Muslim, 35, 36; and Muslim
refugees, 86–88, 89, 92; and passport system, 184, 192, 195, 196; and permit system,
106, 194, 195; and politics, 217–218; on
refugees, 257n17; special, 23, 25, 26, 32;
and undefined status, 207; and visas, 235
Prakasa, Sri, 52
Prasad, Rajendra, 33, 49, 102, 167–169
Prasad, Shankar, 94, 118
property, family endowments of, 149, 213,
262n58; joint, 147–149; private exchange
of, 137–140; rights in, 124, 125; seizures
of, 140–142; see also evacuee property;
land
Punjab, displacements in, 6, 166, 251n67;
East, 40, 42; evacuee property in, 123,
127; house occupations in, 27, 28–29;
Muslims in, 26–27, 251n66; and Pakistan,
26, 175; in Partition, 244n6; and permit
system, 99; refugees from, 27, 28–29,
38–39, 40, 41, 42–43, 58, 98, 251n67;
transfer of populations in, 7, 10, 26–27,
39–43, 73, 74, 123–124, 125; violence in,
6, 21, 22, 39–40, 43, 54, 56, 251nn60,66
Punjab Economic Rehabilitation Ordinance, 124
Purana Qila (Muslim refugee camp; Delhi),
25, 26, 30, 34–39, 42, 117, 156, 250n46;
police deserters in, 248n14; refugees
from, 45, 58
Querishi, I.H., 128, 150, 152, 179, 181, 185;
on Muslim refugees, 165, 170
Rafi bhai, 20–21, 79–85, 121–122
Rahimtoola, Habib, 148
Rahman, Abdur, 231
Rahman, Aboobaker Abdul, 146
Ram, Achhru, 129
Zamindar Index.indd 287
287
Ramaswamy, Sumathi, 244n6
Ranchordas, Seth Bhagwanlal, 152
Randhawa, M.S., 31–32, 89–91, 92, 147,
257n20
Rao, Bhaskar, 8, 53
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, 188
Refugee Committee (Karachi), 66
refugee rehabilitation, 6–12; commissioner
of, 124; and economic development,
8–10; and evacuee property laws, 120,
124–127, 129, 132, 133, 134, 150, 261n22;
and Muslim refugees, 19, 20, 39, 82, 87,
89, 90, 91, 96, 170–176; and NLP, 167;
and non-Muslim refugees, 7, 53; as nonreligious duty, 8, 10; and occupation of
houses, 28, 31, 32; in Pakistan, 68, 96, 150,
153, 154–157, 261n22; and permit system,
101, 104; and property exchanges, 140;
and quotas, 68, 70; and returning Muslim refugees, 87, 89, 90, 91, 96
refugees, 3, 4, 5; as constructed category, 8;
one-way traffic of, 94, 98, 166, 171, 173,
206; quantification of, 86–88, 165, 166;
returning, 73, 74, 79, 82, 85–98, 102, 104,
105, 106, 107, 169, 171, 172, 187, 191, 196,
197, 220, 222, 261n34; two-way traffic of,
99; see also Hindu refugees; Muslim refugees; non-Muslim refugees; Sikh refugees
Refugees and Rehabilitation, Ministry of
(Pakistan), 68
Rehabilitation, Ministry of (India), 126–127,
134–136, 144, 147
Rehabilitation, Ministry of (Pakistan),
153
Rehabilitation Board (Pakistan), 154, 156
Rehabilitation Commissioner (Pakistan),
154–157
Rehman, Hifzur, 219
Rehman, Maulana Habibur, 32–33
Relief and Rehabilitation, Ministries of, 6,
21, 28
religious identity, 121, 134; and citizenship,
52, 119; and national identity, 7–8, 11,
257n12, 264n10
Rent Controller’s Office (Karachi), 59, 66,
149–157; corruption in, 60–62, 150,
152–157
Resolution for the Rehabilitation of Refugees (Pakistan; 1948), 96
Reza, Syed Hashim, 50, 52, 58, 154–156,
170–171
rumors, 54, 64, 65, 90, 186, 264n4
8/21/07 6:40:19 PM
288
index
Saeed, Hakim Mohammad, 247n42
Saleem, Kaiser, 146
Salim, Mirza, 12–13
Salim saheb, 24–26, 34, 36, 37, 143–145;
on evacuee property, 157; on passports,
162–164
Sarkar, Sumit, 37
Sarva Hindu Sind Panchayat, 56
Sathyu, M.S., 13
Scott, James C., 68, 69
Selab-e-Nu (Noah’s Deluge), 164–170
Shahabuddin, Khwaja, 153, 165, 170
sharanatis (Hindu and Sikh refugees), 8
Sikh refugees, 7, 8, 73, 104, 139, 174; and
evacuee property laws, 124, 126, 129;
as evacuees, 120–121; from Karachi,
48, 49; vs. Muslim refugees, 19, 22; and
occupation of houses, 28–29, 31; see also
non-Muslim refugees
Sikhs, 40, 69, 87, 229; citizenship of, 53; vs.
Muslims, 21; in Pakistan, 4, 5, 169; and
violence, 21, 251n60
Sind, 5–6, 60, 64, 170; Hindu exodus
from, 45–76; Hindus in, 8, 43, 56–57,
253nn23,25; housing in, 59, 67; and Muslim refugees, 48, 67, 69–70, 70, 85, 86, 96;
Muslims of, 68; nationalism in, 255n79;
and non-Muslim refugees, 42, 49–50;
vs. Pakistani government, 68; Provincial
Congress of, 8, 56–57
Sind Economic Rehabilitation Bill, 59
Sind Economic Rehabilitation Ordinance, 150
Sind Landholders Mortgage Bill, 51
Sind Maintenance of Public Safety Ordinance (1947), 52, 53
Sind Rent Restriction (Amendment) Bill,
153
Sind University Bill, 51
Singh, Lala Bhim, 73
Singh, Sardar Diwan, 29
Singh, Sardar Hukam, 132–134
Spear, Percival, 22
Sufism, 6
Suhrawardy, Huseyn Shaheed, 5, 71, 255n80
Sukhdev, Seth, 128, 152, 180
Swami,V.N., 219
Swami Narayan temple (Karachi), 52
Torpey, John, 81
transfer of populations, 256n85; and
demands for more land, 174–176; and
property, 40, 43; in Punjab, 7, 10, 26–27,
39–43, 73, 74, 123–124, 125; reversal of,
73, 74
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph, 4
Tumpalliwar, M.D., 219
two-nation theory, 4
Tahilrami, Parsam V., 252n21
Tan, Tai Yong, 27
Tarjuman (newspaper), 111
youth, displacement of, 214–217; majority
of, 214, 215
Yusuf, Zikar, 218–220, 221, 235
Zamindar Index.indd 288
United Nations (UN), 76, 92
Usmani, Maulana Shabbir Ahmad, 61
Uttar Pradesh (UP), 4, 43, 127, 130, 207;
Muslim refugees from, 42, 58, 161, 164,
166, 169, 172; Separation Act in,
148–149
Varma,Vas Dev, 137
violence, bureaucratic, 2, 136, 193, 233; in
Delhi, 5, 6, 11, 21–27, 79, 247n5; and
displacement, 99; and evacuee property,
123, 136, 149; genocidal, 2, 4, 5; government responses to, 6, 7, 21; and Hindu
right, 237; in Karachi, 11, 52, 53, 54, 59,
254n72; and Muslim refugees, 23–26, 33,
48, 63, 166, 172; against Muslims, 14, 237,
247n5, 257n20; of national categories,
208; and nationality, 198; and nationstates, 21–22; and occupation of houses,
27, 31, 32, 59, 67, 87–88, 89; organized,
248n13; Partition, 21–27, 48; and population transfers, 41; in Punjab, 6, 21, 22,
39–40, 43, 54, 56, 251nn60,66; and Sikhs,
21, 251n60; and youth, 216
visas, 184, 191, 192, 195; and citizenship,
200, 201, 202, 203, 215, 217; and family,
222–226, 235; long-term, 220–221, 221,
222, 233; lottery system for, 235; shortterm, 235; and undefined status, 207; for
women, 209, 211
waqf-e-aulad (family endowments), 149, 213,
262n58
women, abductions of, 2, 7, 210; citizenship
of, 107, 209–214; in coal mining, 200;
Muslim, 212–214; Pakistani vs. Indian,
163–164; in shared housing, 153–154
8/21/07 6:40:20 PM